Endless Field/Alive in the Wilderness

[kennycologne]

Here's a review by Matt Collar
"With their 2017 self-titled debut, Endless Field introduced their ambient, windswept brand of instrumental jazz, avant-garde soundscapes, and folky Americana. It was a sound that felt connected to and inspired by nature, and one which they take to yet more transcendent heights on 2020's Alive in the Wilderness. Recorded "field music"-style on solar-powered audio equipment, the album finds guitarist Jesse Lewis and bassist Ike Sturm performing live at various remote outdoor locations in Southern Utah. The result is a deeply emotive and poetic aural experience that incorporates the duo's music with the natural landscapes they encountered. Eschewing any studio overdubs, the duo used nature as their stage, performing against Utah's rushing waterfalls, windswept cliffs, gnarled forests, and arid, shrubby chaparral. Musically, the duo's playing contains its own topographical harmonic vistas, bringing to mind the work of contemporary jazz and new age pioneers like Paul Winter and Michael Hedges, as well as advanced post-bop improvisers like Pat Metheny, Ralph Towner, and Dave Holland. And while there are certainly outré aspects to Endless Field's sound, lyrical melodies abound. Tracks like "Life on Earth," "The Well," and "Old Man" have an evocative quality, as Lewis' shimmering arpeggios and Sturm's woody percussive tones conjure images of the richly textured world surrounding them. Elsewhere, as on "Wind" and "Spirit," they take a more impressionistic approach, improvising against the murmur of a waterfall with skittering chimes, hand percussion, and harmonic lines that seem to flow from the water itself. The album has an ASMR quality, with every plucked string, flutter of wind, or (as on "Creature") bird chittering against metallic percussion and a booming bass, working to envelop your senses as if you were sitting next to Sturm and Lewis. And sometimes it's not just the captured nature sounds that grab you, but the way the duo's instruments react to a given space, as on "Wolfhead," where Sturm's brooding solo basslines traverse the shadowy, curvilinear yawn of a slot canyon. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Lewis and Sturm are passionate advocates for protecting the environment, and all proceeds from the album will be donated to the Natural Resource Defense Council. With Alive in the Wilderness, Endless Field have crafted an album that honors that passion, and continually reinforces the connection between our human artistic impulse and the natural world around us."

Great recording with interesting fun music and sounds.
ENJOY!
On TIDAL