The music of Ruth Mascelli depends on silence and space as much as it does on the application of sounds. The keyboards and washes of noise on the latest release from the Special Interest artist are bracing and soothing at the same time. The Institute for Astral Health, out now via Disciples, is contemplative and engrossing. There's places here where a listener can get lost, and plenty of room to hide.
Track "I" oozes out, a wash of electronic noise under everything, while faint pulses give this a neat momentum. The track is ambient, but it requires attention. Mascelli makes music which feels like we're hearing time stopping, and everything is moving in slo-mo, like one of those scenes in The Matrix (1999) without the violence. On "II" there's a hint of a conventional hook, nods in the direction of Eighties synth-pop faintly heard in the rhythmic thrust of the piece. The simplicity of the hooks here are elegant, and the composition lodges in the brain with ease. It's the past's vision of a future which never happened. Elsewhere, "III" is even better, offering a Sakamoto-ish bit of clever pep through the application of a simple keyboard figure and warm embellishments. Finally, on track "IV" Mascelli offers a sliver of dread, the keyboard-lines revealing a debt owed to John Carpenter. Still, on the whole, The Institute for Astral Health is quietly inventive, thoroughly enveloping, and a soundtrack for one's own inner journey.
The Institute for Astral Health by Ruth Mascelli is out now via Disciples.
[Photo: Brian Barbieri]