This journey starts when someone informs us that “There’s nothing to do but wait for nature to perform its miracles in its own good time.” The phrase captured, fractured in delay, before fading into loose echoed chimes. A shower of enchanted pealing that’s quite possibly been sampled from a dusty, old Radiophonic Workshop library / sound effect record. 

Village church bells toll, birds tweet, twitter, and modular machines manufacture peaceful, reed-like vibrations. Collaged, plumy mid-20th Century BBC accents are spliced together, spinning a tale concerned with the Earth, landscapes and ancient, primitive forces. The story-telling sound design shuffling snatches of stanzas from all sorts of unknown / undefined sources. 

A buzz, that could be an Eastern sitar or tamboura, but more likely a Tony Conrad violin, John Cale viola, slips into shimmering Theatre Of Eternal Music drone. The snipped, nipped and tucked sonics describing the shape of seeds germinating, shoots sprouting, travelling toward the sun. Plucked strings, slowly percussively, raising a rhythm like a unwound clock’s weary tick tock. 

Like KiF Productions’ Still Out from last year, this is could be considered an homage to The mighty KLF. An ambient excursion with a deliberately dream-like quality, it shifts between sweet lullaby and the slightly uneasy. Unsettling, spooky whistles countering any heavenly harp zing.

However, the “Chill Out” comparisons, are a little bit of a cop out. An easy “pop” reference to pull in. The artist himself, Death In Vegas alumni Danny Hammond, instead, cites Alice Coltrane and Pauline Oliveros, and these influences are made more overt in the piece’s second half. The holy voice of Coltrane, Swamini Turiyasangitananda, is actually present, and there’s an extended section given over to celestial, spiritual, chromatic glissandi. Elsewhere an electric hum produces the machine equivalent of Hindi’s healing Om. 

In addition, low oscillations seem to originate from an accordion, a la Oliveros. Gently moving from serene squeezebox sea shanty – accompanied by field recorded waves and tides – through ranges of resonance. Their root becoming impossible to ascertain. The jigsaw of re-purposed, re-contextualised words, weaving its narrative from disparate directions, also draws the audience into its own form of Oliveros’ deep listening, as an attentive mind can’t help but jump between the juxtaposition, searching for personal connection and the composition’s overriding message.  

Deep Earth Network’s Land can be ordered directly from Bandcamp.