SILT

A vision has obsessed me for more than a decade: deep-ocean worms slithering through delicate seafloor matter in the compressed depths, sensing each other in the darkness. Compositionally akin to soundscape ecologies, the tracks on Silt evoke fauna living between ocean silt and water, navigating from the aphotic (light-void) abyssal plain to the twilight zone where scant rays of light eek down from the surface.

I am interested in audio phenomena that emerge from chance-based and biophony-like systems. I started developing my own software in 2018 and early versions had no user interface whatsoever. My aim was to create sonic happenings that were autonomous and alive, where sounds—like organisms or elements in an ecosystem—are born, express themselves, change through friction with the world, and then dissipate, transcend, or die.

I think of the companion tracks on Silt as versions, my code living as a mutable score with the potential to spawn innumerable variants. The source recordings used to create the album originate from a collaboration with guitarist and plant scientist Jacob Uretsky in 2004.

The album was released by Enmossed + Psychic Liberation on March 20, 2022 (a limited first pressing of 125 copies and a second repress of 40 copies). The album sold out via the label but copies may remain via their stockists. You can visit enmossed.org for more information.

The album contains two tracks: "Silt, No. 001" (27:54) and "Silt, No. 002" (28:06).

Type I cassettes pro-dubbed at a carbon-neutral facility. Recycled plastic cassette shells. Metallic paper j-cards with metallic foil print.

Composed, recorded, and mastered by Forest Kelley in 2021. Source guitar by Jacob Uretsky. Audio finalized for cassette tape by Glyn Maier. Design by RJM Vanderheyden.