Seasonal Diary IV: Shadowed Embrace

There’s a melancholic tug to autumn, a season of transitions where we accept light and darkness’s coexistence. Arriving at the final instalment in the series, Shadowed Embrace brings us full circle, with five artists distilling in sound this sombre, yet gentle time of year. Whether it’s a joy tinted by dread, or cradling the softer edges of sadness, the tracks welcome the strange mystique that fall brings.

Haron’s “Green Tin Trunk” initiates an intimate pas de deux between bright, sparse notes and intervals of space. Together the elements nestle the listener carefully under a duvet of serenity. Drifting between dreams, the listener quietly treads into the changing season as Adriaan de Roover brings us to a sullen landscape in “Kakapo.” Wuthering tones are layered over a dimmed metronomic pulse, a steady rhythm breaking between the foggy, pewter mists.

The blurry haze continues its tender hold in “rest is so important.” Dania builds a candlelit labyrinth, where a gently beguiling sound seduces the listener through a portal into the dimmer shades of autumn’s allure. A guitar loop creates a steady background of earthly density, while echoing clarinet voices murmur, tremble, and soothe with the warmth of a grainy, flickering light. This flickering fades into a steady drone in Mich L.’s “Cupio Dissolvi.” Inspired by and recorded and mixed during the hottest months ever recorded on Earth in human history, the track stretches over 19 minutes, with subtle layers added in progression. As it develops, there’s more weight given to the mix, a feeling of impending doom slowly settling in that, much like human-induced climate change, has a way of gravely creeping up on us over time. 

“More Tuge / The Sea of Sorrow” further elaborates on the fragility of ecosystems at the cost of human destruction, while capturing a paradox of desolate peace. Manja Ristić went to the Port of Gruž on the Adriatic Sea and recorded the underwater sound pollution of anchored boats with a hydrophone. Silver strands of notes are braided in the air with water burbling below, a pure midnight tranquillity, before the grind of mechanical elements slowly enter the fold. We’re confronted with the effects personal leisure—yachts, boats, catamarans, and cruises—has on our environs, a tension capturing the fabric of joy and despair.

This tension—avoidance and acceptance, hints of gloom and gentle ease—is found throughout the five tracks in their timbres and temporality. Rather than succumbing fully to sorrow, we are invited by the artists to embrace our shadows and feel autumn’s subdued, yet heartfelt caress.