Norah Lorway’s “digitalOcean,” off a forthcoming release on the Xylem Records label, is full-on maximalist ambience. It’s quiet-seeming music that manages to remain loud even as you lower the volume. The shimmering white noise has all the signals of reflection, of peacefulness: the absence of percussion, the adherence to sameness, the limited and consistent range of sounds. But it is anything but peaceful. This is static only in the way that being in the pouring rain means to be continuously wet. This is static only in the sense of elements taking their wondrous toll on a cliff, and the whole thing being filmed over the course of millennia and then the film being sped up for our geological education. The track is beautiful in a brutal way and brutal in a beautiful way.
Originally posted at soundcloud.com/norahlo. More from Lorwaym based in Cornwall in the U.K., at norahlorway.com.