Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea : Reveries

Over the last couple of years I’ve started painting. Acrylics, canvas, and my imagination lay out some simple vision that sits in my head waiting to reveal itself through hand, brush, and color palate. The urge to communicate something from heart to head to canvas. This is not to say I find myself particularly good at it, but with each “thing” I make I find new quirks, unlocked skills, and a contentment in the act of creating something out of thin air.

The music of Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea( Zach Frizzell, Marc Ertel and Damien Duque) is as close to the act of creating something out of thin air as I can think of. Much like swimming colors on a stage of tightly pulled fabric, the ambient/new age textures of Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea make amorphous, glorious clouds of sound from swells of guitars and electronics processed to the point that they become something else entirely. Pressure begats diamonds; circuits and electricity begat sonic beauty.

It’s been nearly four years since Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea’s last full length, the rich and mysterious Liberamente(Azure Vista Records.) We now have Reveries, a six-track collection released with Sonic Cathedral. Like it’s predecessor, Reveries has the motion of slow-moving clouds on a beautiful summer day. Songs envelope the listener with tactile movements, expertly curated by three musicians that seamlessly work together to create something unique, singular, and at times otherworldly.

The six tracks on Reveries feel more like movements than single tracks. Pieces that form a whole; melancholy skies and ethereal sound build something bigger than ourselves, transmitted via vinyl grooves or zeros and ones(depending on your particular audio persuasion.) As a whole these tracks are transformative and transcendent, beauty passed through soundwaves and human connection. This is the good stuff, people.

“Reveries” opens the album with ten minutes of looping melody. Orchestral in nature, as if a ghost symphony plays for you in some alternate space and time. You can imagine skies opening revealing beckoning blues as overcast skies play hide and seek with the sun. “Deus” emanates with calming tones and effervescent optimism, sitting somewhere between Stars of the Lid and Windy & Carl. Sparse yet overwhelmingly joyful. “Cadere” arrived months ago, a postcard from some distant future promising sonic bliss to come.

Elsewhere “Somnium” builds up from cavernous depths like lava forming new land mass, while “Vale” lightens up the proceedings with ethereal light. “Aufero” closes out the album in white light and positive energy, the trio of Frizzell, Ertel, and Duque casting sonic spells and optimistic intent via the power of electronics.

Once again Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea makes a definitive musical statement in the form of Reveries. In trying times, this is the musical salve to heal those psychic wounds. We need it now more than ever.