The intensity of buzzing insects turns into a moving meditation on impermanence and what lies beyond on the incredible opening track of Gravity + Sand, “A Song of Wings.” Not dissimilar to the hypnosis-through-constant-movement of Ted Byrnes’ Moving My Body Through Space, the frenetic sonic mayhem of the swarm becomes strangely comforting just as Bethan Kellough’s monumental synth swells fade in. The massive chords hang there for barely a minute, but that moment of exclamation, of catharsis leaves a deep bruise.
Gravity + Sand plays with memories, recalling specific moments in time and reframing them within different tonal forests. Strings creak and drone in the morning light of “Hour Glass,” distilled in slow fractals carving shapes in the sky. It’s lulling and peaceful, but when Kellough takes similar sounds and twists them across a pulsing rhythm on “Epilogue,” throwing everything for a disorienting loop while finding new perspectives to embrace. “Return” blurs the view into a shrouded veil before the ghosts of “Hour Glass” make one last round in the darkness and escape back into the day.
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