Mycorrizhal Music is the debut long-player from Californian composition PhD student Ess Whiteley. The 7 tracks, “conceived as kinetic ambient music” are all constructed from collisions of chiming Steve Reich-ian counterpoint. The opening Rhizomatic Harpists travels through showers of cascading sequences and Detroit-ish strings (of life), climbing and climbing toward climatic horn fanfares. Riding on tiny, intricate glitched and scratched IDM beats. Cut from similar sonic cloth as The Irresistible Force’s Lotus Position, it sets the scene with a frantic, frenetic energy that doesn’t really let up. That said, the tracks do alternate between full-on intensity and comparative calm. Mycelial Circuit Board Dreams, for example, reduces the electronics to a shimmering sheen, while spotlighting Whiteley’s trumpet. 

Music For Moving & Being begins with fresh water trickling and piano rippling in harp-like glissandos, before segueing into looped and phased violin. Transforming itself into a Penguin Cafe Orchestra-esque chamber music take on a traditional jig & reel. Interspecies Musicians is a spritely spiral of intertwining, overlapping mercurial marimba melodies, punctuated by carnival whistles and funky, fractured fusion keys. Whispered Messages in Tapestried Field of Fluid Motion starts as a sorta Gaelic spin

set against a filtered drum & bass rhythm, but its second half is far more “Music For 18 Musicians”. The piece finally fading into the field recordings it was built on. 

All is busy, bustling with excitable elements. Synthetically mimicking organic, natural environments. Landscapes alive with wildlife. A high summer of fields full of crops, birds and insects. Sunlight reflecting, bouncing off rivers and streams teaming with fish. None of the selections are exactly beatless. However, the listener is free to chose whether to shimmy or to chill. The Reichian rapids of Dancing Air surf a squelchy TB-303 undertow and launch into a soaring synth solo. Like Midori Takada meeting Kenny Larkin’s Dark Comedy. Transmat making music for a clear, bright mountainside morning, rather than deep space.

Ess Whiteley’s Mycorrizhal Music can be ordered directly from Métron Records.