There’s a solace in some electronic music with its journey like approach to soundscapes and narrative. Although its more ambient and abstract form, electronica can be hard to penetrate and hard to feel, Photay’s fifth album is peppered with regular rhythmic motifs and industrial sounds to carry its concepts of the wind.
The album opens with Forecast, a contemplative atmospherically harmonised a cappella mantra “You are not alone when the wind carries on”, before busting into Global Wind Trade’s expansive sequencing and drumming. Derecho introduces a dynamic shift, blending metallic percussion with cascading bell sounds, illustrating Photay’s ability to juxtapose darker elements with organic timbre. Changing the tone Low Pressure System, comes set in a 7/4 meter, adds a layer of rhythmic complexity and intrigue keeping the listener engaged and curious about what comes next. The final song, Still Existing, brings back the starting mantra in a grander shuffling backbeat.
In Windswept, Photay has crafted an album that is both innovative and emotionally resonant. It sits proudly with accomplishment between the sounds of ambient electro, new age jazz, and home-rave percussion. This style is often easy to ignore as the sounds of third-wave coffee shops on busy high streets, but each song is worth its own pause. An each’s songs thematic cohesion, inspired by the concept of the wind, seems to capture different facets of this force - its unpredictability, its gentleness, and its power. These tie together as my sound track to 2024’s winter days.