In 1976, composer Mort Garson released Mother Earth’s Plantasia, an album of early electronic ditties designed to help listeners’ house plants grow. Though its horticultural facility is questionable, it became a cult classic among record collectors, beloved for its sweet, jaunty music as much as its concept. Propagation is also the raison d’être of Music to Watch Grow Seeds By, a new cassette label that pairs a packet of seeds with a release. For its second instalment, the delphinium elatum takes centre stage, providing the inspiration and part of the production process for Pittsburgh-based sound artist Davis Galvin, who used the perennial’s lilac petals to make marks that then formed part of a score.
Joining the dots between ambient, new age and dub, Prism is a slow-building, meditative record that ebbs and flows without pause, more soundscape than standalone tracks. But an uncanniness lies beneath the calm. Opener Sipes’ Vista hinges on a deep, oscillating synth lead, which builds into a tangle of mutating low-end frequencies. The subterranean flurry comes to a head on the second track, Humidity 14, where hissing static cuts through the atmospheric textures. Later, it’s more subtle: a loungy guitar riff in Grasshopper (Solo) is scattered with barely audible mutterings, weird glitches and found sounds from walks around California and Mexico City. The dissonant layers add a disorienting edge to an otherwise soporific listen.
