Christopher Sky ‘Vastness’ Review: L.A. based instrumentalist conjures immersive ambient soundscapes that both invigorate and soothe.
Composer/instrumentalist Christopher Sky’s newest album Vastness (out November 9th on vinyl through Aagoo Records, and digitally via Hidden Shoal) is a master class of ambient mood, light, and shade.
Crafting rich soundscapes through guitar, electronics and percussion, Sky creates a fully immersive sonic experience, kicking off with As She Sleeps, a fittingly tranquil track, flecked with soulful Rhodes piano and staticky textures.
By The Ocean is a hypnotic stunner, full of bell tone blips and clanging tones, a deep tissue aural massage that is as warm as inviting as its aquatic moniker suggest.
Elsewhere, Sky grows more experimental: End of An Era, sounds like an alien transmission picked up over satellites, its diffuse and Aphex Twin-esque, both eerie yet beautiful.
Gold and Silver has similar cinematic overtones, in this case, suggesting a spy thriller or knotted drama, while In a Room’s trance inducing atmospherics has a subtle tension interjected into an otherwise tranquil bed of sound.
Months Away recalls Bowie’s Subterraneans if the vocals were stripped and its musical skeleton was reconfigured into even more angular shards of sound, while closer You’ve Been Gone Too Long employees elements of glitch and ethereal keys, evoking a mood of disorienting melancholy.
Vastness is an accomplished work that lives up to its title–a transportive, widescreen expanse of sound that is rejuvenating and contemplative, offering relief and sonic introspection during these world-weary times.
Buy Christopher Sky’s Vastness on Amazon.
