Genre: Experimental

If someone told you there was music that could lull pillowy-winged moths into a fluttery state of happiness, that the Aurora Borealis can sing even better than you and I, or that the roots of the American elm trees in Central Park are a bustling ensemble waiting for their cue, would you believe them? Matthew Burtner would, and he’d have no trouble proving it on PROFILED FROM ATMOSPHERES, the veteran ecoacoustic composer’s sixth release with Ravello Records. Burtner lifts the veil between humanity and its planet, translating its messages into an intimate medium invariably understood amongst its inhabitants. These messages make an urgent case in the titular work Profiled From Atmospheres, a collaborative work between atmospheric sound profiles derived from humanity’s top three greenhouse gas emissions and saxophone/percussion duo Michael Weiss and Elizabeth Soflin. The result is an eerie, haunting sonification that serves as a poignant reminder; if we want to continue hearing the songs of the atmosphere and the planet it blankets, it’s our responsibility to preserve it.

On the coasts of the Atlantic, sparrows whistle atop the trees, Eastern winds whisper through spartina grasses, and fiddler crabs skitter within their sandy burrows — a great symphony of shorelines soon to be left incomplete. As rising sea levels continue to threaten coastal reefs, shores, and the hundreds of lifeforms inhabiting them, the Coastal Conservatory urges us to consider our efforts of restoration and offers us an avenue for restoring coastal futures, a meditation on the music of the most integral barriers to the ever-pressing Atlantic. SOUNDSCAPES OF RESTORATION is both an exploration and a reflection, a listening experience that leaves one changed with the desire to make change further. It is a journey that cannot, and should not, be forgotten.

Whim Ensemble musically explores Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s artistic abstractions of nature on TREES from Ravello Records. Employing the skills of prepared-piano player Ofer Pelz, percussionist Preston Beebe, and double-bassist Stéphane Diamantakiou, the ensemble combines their years of experience as composers and performers to unearth new textures and timbres for their instruments. The resulting album effuses influences of free jazz, contemporary experimental music, and more to foster a unique take on Mondrian’s creative process and influential artistic output.