Where am I? How did I get here? I remember I was following a trail, I glimpsed something glinting between the trees…I set off in pursuit. Moss gave way to mulch, which in turn gave way to mire. I walked off the edge of the map, and off the end of the day. Darkness is dripping through the canopy, and energy is draining from my legs. I’ll stop here, rest a while by this stream. Close my eyes. Just for a few minutes.

Where am I? How did I get here: I remember I was following a trail, a trail which connected the music of Xela and the music of A Broken Consort’s Rich Skelton. I heard there was an enigmatic character operating under the name of Seasons (Pre-Din), someone who’d gone way up-river. I tracked him down, and for my trouble ended up with hours of these curiosities in handmade cardboard sleeves, wrapped in tissue and stuffed full of little paper leaves. The first to have been released was Above The Tides Fold, which features singing bowl whine buffeting wet wood, and lush organic-sounding drones, forested around a middle section of pregnant near-silence. The Canopy Falls takes this approach further from source, sampling idyllic river sounds and reinventing them as a nightmarish static which eventually melts away into daylight and birdsong. By The Banks Go Through is a collection of rough-hewn fragments, field recordings and delicate instrumentation; guitar, dulcimer and distant-sounding percussion permeating the early morning haze. It seems somehow appropriate that the track listing for this is in a state of constant fluidity: new channels are etched into the river banks, new roots sink deep into the water table.

This is music of the trees, of the river, and of the earth; yet this is music for the head and for the heart. Stop here, rest a while. Don’t close your eyes, keep them open, watching the inexorable changing of the Seasons – more new material is expected, but as is the nature of this music it seems, God only knows when.

*UPDATE – limited numbers of Above The Tides Fold are available now from Boomkat*