KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH – “THE MOSAIC OF TRANSFORMATION” //Ghostly// (Released 14th August)

Description

£18.99 – 1xLP, Limited Edition Transparent Vinyl

£17.99 – 1xLP, Standard Edition

West coast composer, artist, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has chartered a pioneering career with multiple critically-acclaimed albums since 2015. Following the release of ‘The Kid’ in 2017, Smith focused her energy in several Smith describes her first encounters with this mosaic; “the inspiration came to me in a sudden bubble of joy. It was accompanied by a multitude of shapes that were moving seamlessly from one into the other…My movement practice has been a constant transformation piece by piece. I made this album in the same way. Every day I would transform what I did yesterday…into something else. This album has gone through about 12 different versions of itself.” As it has arrived, in a completed state, The Mosaic of Transformation is a holistic manifestation of embodied motions. Smith’s signature textural curiosity that fans have grown to adore pivots naturally into a proprioceptive study of melody and timbre. Airy organ and voice interweave with burbling Buchla-spawned harmonic bubbles.

‘The Steady Heart’ quivers to life, peppering blasts of wooden organ between winding vocal affirmations. As with a body, moving one portion requires a balance and counterbalance; here, subtle tonal twitchy signals fire in con-junction with coiling arias to create a mesmeric core. When the beat arrives at the midway mark, a swooping and jittery waltz, a sense of stasis in motion, a flow state, is sonically achieved. As soon as it syncs, it disappears back into the swirling ebbs of electric force. Other tracks stray into more ruminative physical realms. ‘Carrying Gravity’ is built around string-like pads that expand and contract like a solar plexus, becoming taught and then loose.

If the record could be summarised in a single movement, it is the 10-minute closing suite, a rapturous collage called ‘Expanding Electricity’. Symphonic phrases establish the piece before washes of glittering electric peals and synthesized vibraphone helix into focus. Soon, Smith’s voice grounds it all with an intuitive vocal hook, harmonised and augmented by concentric spirals of harp-and-horn-like sounds. Smith’s music doesn’t capture a specific emotion as much as it captures the joys of possessing a body, and the ability to, with devotion and a steady open heart, maneuver that vessel in space by way of electricity to euphoric degrees. The Mosaic Of Transformation is her eighth full album and her first for Ghostly International.

Tracklisting:

1. 1. 1. Unbraiding boundless energy within boundaries
      2. Remembering
      3. Understanding body messages
      4. The steady heart
      5. Carrying gravity
      6. The spine is quiet in the center
      7. Overflowing
      8. Deepening the flow of
      9. Expanding electricity