Frederick St. Peter gifts us with aperçus scintillants, a beautiful sequence of gently refreshing vignettes well suited for both background and engaged listening.
Each of the 12 tracks, most of which hover around one or two minutes in length, gives us a brief glimpse into a different feeling. The emotions present are subtle and pensive. The tone is somewhat cold like a pleasant walk on a winter day, grounding the listener in the present rather than warm nostalgia. Calm, but alert.
For a moment, your attention is caught by a drifting leaf, one of the last of the autumn leaves to drop. Another moment passes, and the glittering reflection of the lake catches your eye. In the next, a dark cloud looms on the horizon.
The music itself is mostly made with the sounds of bells, piano, and strings, with occasional swells of subtle distortion. The harmony weaves between sparse minimalism and more ethereal dissonant clusters, taking inspiration from early 20th century atonality and late 19th century French impressionism. I'm reminded of composers like Schoenberg, Webern, Cage, Ives, Debussy, and Satie, but always interpreted through a distinctly contemporary sound only possible through the use of electronic recording and production techniques.