Meemo Comma, “Tanglewood” (Planet Mu)
Hundreds of ambient releases come out annually. Many are perfectly fine works to which you can code, write poetry, update your résumé, get a deep-tissue massage, or eat a quinoa salad. Some are inconsequential. And a handful are truly absorbing. Count Sleepmoss (out October 25), the sophomore album by Meemo Comma (real name: Lara Rix-Martin), among the latter—and, if you’re keeping score at home, it will likely nestle into my year-end top 10 list.
Issued by the unfailingly interesting UK label Planet Mu, Sleepmoss seamlessly laces field recordings (birdsong, creakings, rolling metallic spheres and other mysterious non-musical noises) into pieces that haunt and chill with drones of desolate beauty. The tenebrous orchestral title track, though, sounds as if it could’ve appeared in the unnerving sci-fi film Under the Skin. These 12 tracks are aching to be used in an avant-garde movie about the supernatural aspects of nature, although the press release states that they were “inspired by the shifting landscapes of her daily walks with her dog on the South Downs” in Brighton, England.
“Tanglewood” ensnares you instantly with a gentle gust of what sounds like a depressed, gorgeous flute moan and that aforementioned rolling object. Meemo Comma goes on to spin a diaphanous web of mysterious, warped bell tones and super-tactile rustling, whisking you out of mundane reality into a fascinating sanctum sanctorum of unknown origin. I feel simultaneously lost and found.
