Words have been failing a lot lately, so happening upon Leanna Keith’s “something in the wind” was all the more welcome. A sinister bank of undulating static eddies and swarms before us, and . . . why can I taste sand? Needling affronts to comfort preside over a desert emerging, one of hot, snapping synapses, insectal skirmishes, and the swishing of digital reeds. A beautiful rendering of a most loathsome circumstance!
A single flute advances cautiously from the background, a scout distinguished before others, and furtive companions file behind one by one. What constellates is a traveling band, helixing voices mounting into layers before us, and a plaintive communing commences. There’s fear here. Loss. There’s a mourning, but one done in the comfort of burdens borne amongst the alike ingreived. Voicings pad down into a warm altar,
and slowly they raise a descant soloist bringing to fore comfort, reflection, and rally. All abandon the scene, quick as a turning page.
Keith has crafted a soundscape of confident and patient dimensionality, one rendered beyond the mere translexical stacking of tones. There’s a deep conversation here, there’s inquiry, and as much digital character as there is human. I enjoyed how the brushstroke breaths of Keith’s playing were featured, laying their footprints plain throughout. Perhaps it’s the hyperphantasia talking, but there were moments in this piece that were clearer than cinema.
Keith co-curated this Ball of Wax collection alongside multi-instrumentalist Kate Olson, and I thought this appropriate considering that both are deft in the construction of sonic dioramas, these containers for the wordless conversation. Keith’s “something in the wind” is well-met by Olson’s “selfexploration,” which to me felt like a jaw-clenched bout of Blade Runner lounge reflection. I’ll put in my request now: it’d be great to have these two co-writing, a My Dinner With Andre scenario of soundsmiths in dialogue, for just imagine the far-flung worlds and unsung stories they could share with us!