Secret Pyramid - A Vanishing Touch '2023

Tracks list

While possibly not the first ambient record to be inspired by J Dilla’s
Donuts, Secret Pyramid’s A Vanishing Touch is in rarified company. The
two seem antithetical - with Donuts a now classic collection of short beats
compiled together and A Vanishing Touch being a forty-minute suite consisting of
fourteen pieces. However, like any genre, ambient music has a lot more going on
beneath the surface than might be initially gleaned. From the start, Amir Abbey
dropped his usual songwriting process of long contemplation and careful
sculpting. “I let the pieces live and breathe, and I spent a lot less time
tweaking and editing. Doing this brought an energy and mystery to the music that
was missing from what I’ve made in the past.” This allowed the
record to come together quickly”, with Abbey working on it nightly after
his work day had ended. “Each album is a snapshot of where I am at that
point in time. With this album, I have been thinking about shifting memory, how
a moment in time does not need to be thought of as endless, but rather part of a
cycle. Every beginning is as important and salient as the ending that
follows.” Working at home, as he always has, Abbey embeds synths, tape
loops and processing, horns, ondes martenot, guitar, bass, and organ within the
multi-tiered composition of A Vanishing Touch. Sounds morph, bleed, fade, and
permeate with moments where a listener is able to make out what is being played
at that moment. “I’ve intentionally blurred some of the
instrumentation and it can’t be easily made out, so even if you pay
attention to the sound, there’s something ephemeral about it.” Each
measure feels deep, singular, mysterious, and unconfined. It’s a new
approach to ambience—the magic of the moment as a moment, not stretched
beyond its point in time. “A Vanishing in Touch is about impermanence and
the beauty that can result from it.”

Tracklist:
1.01 - Secret Pyramid - Whim (2:17)
1.02 - Secret Pyramid - Slow Softly (3:31)
1.03 - Secret Pyramid - Broken Wing (1:07)
1.04 - Secret Pyramid - Kiss The Hold (4:04)
1.05 - Secret Pyramid - So So (2:26)
1.06 - Secret Pyramid - Out Of The Sky, Into The Ground (1:34)
1.07 - Secret Pyramid - Valerian (4:30)
1.08 - Secret Pyramid - Bloom Nightly (0:57)
1.09 - Secret Pyramid - One Twelve (1:43)
1.10 - Secret Pyramid - Blush (2:06)
1.11 - Secret Pyramid - Hands To (3:48)
1.12 - Secret Pyramid - First Rotation (2:51)
1.13 - Secret Pyramid - Turning Into Air (4:16)
1.14 - Secret Pyramid - Cradle (4:41)

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