Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space. “Cluster” is the name the European Space Agency has coined for a fleet of orbiting satellites collecting data about the Earth’s atmosphere. According to our friend and longtime collaborator Darryl Blood, its most recent discovery is the fact that some of our oxygen is leaking into outer space. So (in my uninformed, non-scientific interpretation) not only are we making less of it (and more carbon) due to deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, but the same activities have degraded our atmosphere such that we’re losing more it as well. Great.
“Cluster (Atmosphere),” a collaborative piece by Darryl and Green Light Cameras, seeks to evoke, through music, the phenomenon of precious oxygen molecules leaking through these myriad holes in our atmosphere. And something about this piece – piano, percussion, and various drones washing over each other, layered with delay – does make one feel fragile, weightless, vanishing. Not unlike the evisceration of our environment and the decay of our atmosphere, it takes a while to get going, and then all of a sudden it’s over and you’re not quite sure what you could have done to stop it. But unlike with the slow-moving natural disaster we’re all floating through, you can just hit the back button and play it again. I could easily listen to a ten-plus-minute version of this track, but I applaud Darryl and GLC’s restraint in making it practically pop song length. I hope they have more – and longer – collaborations in the works.