Gentle if fairly rapid percussives lay the groundwork for muffled chatter, both bird noise and the captured voice of what is a United Airlines flight attendant. This is “We Belong to the Universe” by High Tunnels, aka Dave Ramirez of Hillsborough, North Carolina. It’s a brisk little piece. The beat occasionally sounds like it might erupt into a proper post-rock song, and yet it never quite goes there, never fully unleashes any dense math. It never quite aligns firmly, either, with minimalist classical music. Instead it hovers in the nether realm between them, at peace with its own chipper rhythmic developments, changing from one plateau to another as it proceeds. At one point the beat sounds like it’s caught in a locked groove, and then is let loose into a blissful new permutation. At another the sheer precision is balanced by the texture of the sound source: what is reported to be a pair of wooden spoons.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/hightunnels. More from High Tunnels at hightunnels.bandcamp.com and hightunnelsmusic.com.