Music From Memory’s latest long-player is the work of Hanyo van Oosterom, a veteran Rotterdam-based experimental multi-instrumentalist, released under the alias of Son Of Chi. 

The words of poet Robert Lax open the album, what amounts to a ceremony, explaining about his need to keep working, in order to “put yourself in a place where grace can flow.” To tap into a collective, psychic space of imagination and creation. Tuareg picking describes a desert, the start of a journey, what turns out to be a tapestry of distant chants, loose percussion and driven by dub bass-lines. 

The trip is full of field recordings. A hallucinatory, peyote button heat haze where crows caw, cattle bells rattle and then the Sahara breaks down, shifts to somewhere Spanish, serenaded by crickets and cicadas. Language gets looped. The narration supplied by cosmic guides: Senegalese vocalist Omar Ka and Elders of the Native American Hopi Tribe. The music is like ECM jazz meets the drones of modern, digital ambient. Seamlessly weaving together different, separate sections. Snatches of woodwinds, traditional song, and patient piano ripples. Exploring Jon Hassell’s Fourth World with gentle electro-acoustics.

Part II begins with busy idiophone patterns. Marimba, balaphon, mixed with Aboriginal voices. Reed-like synths and drum circle congas. Children engaged in call-and-response play. What sounds like the sampled spirits from Eno & Byrne’s Bush Of Ghosts. Holy men, preachers, seers, seekers. Brief bursts of radio transmission, interrupt a blues-y stomp. Harmonica howling blends into birdsong into prayer-like yodell. The groove globe-trotting through carefully collaged rituals. Finally coming full circle, with Lax announcing the album, the experience’s title, “We Carry Eden” and the promise of paradise within.

These 2 long-form pieces are experimental, but melodic, musical and totally accessible. You can order a copy directly from Music From Memory.