Thoughts on 'waves'
There’s a new album out this month by my good friend. It’s called waves. We’ve worked together on and off for 7 years now¹, if you can believe it…so this definitely isn’t an impartial review.
The first track, “indigo,” drops you into a stop-start world of ominous ambiance and danger around every corner. It feels like being alive in 2025. But much like we are all charting our own way through the chaos, making some sense of the troubled seas around us, finding purpose where we can, the album finds little islands of sonic meaning in the mayhem.
I don’t want to dance very often, but “do you feel it too?” makes me want to. It captures that exuberance that you can only really find in tough times. If you enjoyed the sounds of Sufjan Stevens’ The Age of Adz, which is personally my favorite album of all time, I think you will really like this record. That feels very similarly about snatching these moments of joy from despair...
The title track reminds me of all the great times I have spent on cloudy and windy coasts. I tend to prefer beaches in the winter, especially here in the Northwest…hardly anyone is there, but you really feel that you are at the edge of something. In the winter, the winds whip so hard that sand sometimes buffets you. The grey of the sky is almost indistinguishable from the reflection in the water. It’s like the land gives out to an undifferentiated mass that goes on forever. It’s a great place to think. I look forward to listening to it again on a winter day, in a big coat, looking out at the water.
The album returns to the formless void at the end, in “you + in my memory.” I couldn’t help but think at this time about how everything we make ends at some point…sometimes it happens on your terms, sometimes things just fade out, and sometimes they go up in a conflagration beyond your control. Through it all, getting to work with a musician this talented again and again has been an inspiration…I really think it played a big role in me finding my voice again.
I looped the album around from last to first track and felt the joy emerge from the noise once more…I think that, no matter how tough things get, we can find our friends again. Maybe it sounds different the next time through. But that’s okay.
“waves” is out now on Bandcamp. If I were you, I’d buy it.
1. The latest collaboration is that Hywell has made the theme for my new podcast, SURVEY_PROGRAM. Though different music has featured in my projects often, I can’t imagine anyone else being the “main sound,” you know? There is nothing like the experience of getting to walk on stage to music made for you by a friend. I hope to do it again one day.