valyri
Phases
2018, Hairs aBlazin’
At first the 99:11 duration stared me down like some forbidding castle wall. When you’ve got a few hundred albums on your ‘to check’ list (don’t ask), it’s not easy picking or even justifying picking an album of this length over one of, say, 40 minutes. But I did. And I’m glad I did.
I started with one phase, and the other three followed as naturally as the flow of a river.
The haze is just perfect on valyri’s synths. Her melodies on Phases are abstractions, echoes of classical influences, stretched into a kind of non-repetitive ambient minimalism. A hundred minutes flit by in a divine instant.
Each of these four phases has its own warmth and depth, its own textures, the mysterious kind of winding spaciousness and wetness of a cave system, reluctantly revealing new natural treasures after each passage.
This album has the power to calm me, the way precious few things have in this tumultuous period of my life. It transports me to its own world, but more importantly, it manages to channel some of its serenity back into our world, which is more valuable still.
Thank you, valyri.
Phases is out on Hairs aBlazin’, or available through a subscription to valyri’s Bandcamp.
