Deforestation is the sound of Colorado native Mute Forest whispering gently in your ear, a hushed eclectic ambient folk – a stillness within the clamour of modern music – within modern life. What it makes it so special is how close mic’d the vocals are, you can hear his lips purse – it feels like he’s part of your subconscious. The music meanwhile is a washed out ambient folk filled with skittery electric touches or a deep bass throb that still manages to offer a collective Jungian nostalgia even when listening for the first time.
It’s the way folk music should sound in 2015, post Hood, mid Benoit Pioulard. It’s a seamless fusion of the electronic and acoustic, with both elements fully realised yet enmeshed – tied together by the poignant melancholic vocals. He says his music is inspired by “the beetle decimated woodlands of Colorado,” and there’s something uniquely pastoral about his sounds, yet there’s also a subdued deconstructed electronic feel, and his alchemy is tying these disparate threads together so meaningfully.
It’s the work of Kael Smith, who also records under the Mombi moniker. His lyrics are mysterious and evocative, almost tone poems themselves, a series of intimate gestures and vague allusions, interspersed with grand poetic statements that you almost want to sit down and ponder in isolation. “If you’re tethered to the wreckage you wont feel what it’s like,” he offers at the beginning of ‘Back of Cave,’ and the remainder of the song doesn’t provide much concrete illumination about what he is referring to. Yet it doesn’t matter, his sonic world is so assured and seductive, whilst his words are so evocative that immersion in the world of Mute Forest feels like a gift in itself.
The final piece ‘From God, To Kane, To Seth’ is remarkable, it’s a weary melancholia, the audio equivalent of a worn faded photograph, with piano, an electronic throb, and a clipped choir and Smith repeating the words “deep pockets from a memory well” borrowing into our subconscious.
It’s also typically jaw-dropping packaging from Lost Tribe Sound, a heavy duty gatefold vinyl, mastered by Taylor Dupree with incredibly evocative art. It’s clear that as much work and attention to detail has gone into the design and aesthetic of Deforestation as the music.
Deforestation is available from here.
