Sotto Yambao, Samantha - Water Moon

Like a scene from a dream, Thor Harris stood upon a crowded stage, 13 players deep: tapping, plucking, bowing, blowing lyric-less love songs to a grand auditorium of 325 shining red seats – without a soul sitting in any of them. This was the creation of 'Heathen Spirituals', the fifth recorded work by Harris’ adventurous ambient ensemble Thor & Friends and the first that accurately resembles the skyward repetition of the Austin-based group’s live performances. It’s a century-old concept: cutting a record in an empty music hall. Masterminded by intrepid producer and lifelong Harris collaborator Craig Ross (Patty Griffin, Spoon), Thor & Friends’ roster of musically accomplished misfits spent two days wired up, playing free flowing meditational pieces on unamplified orchestral instruments inside Jessen Auditorium, a stunning Art Deco relic from the early days of the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music – the esteemed institution that Harris dropped out from decades ago. 'Heathen Spirituals' contains three original pieces with a 35-minute runtime. The rhythmic repetition of opening seance “Anne Sexton’s Glasses” evokes a cognitive crescendo, while the spellbinding “Christmas Eve at the Wizard’s House” evokes a sense of weightlessness, sucking the listener up into the firmament then floating them back down. The crashing, choir-backed “Heathen Spiritual,” meanwhile, stirs a gorgeous requiem for a dying planet. In glorious fidelity, the sessions capture the instinctual purity of Thor & Friends’ live performances, which thrive on skyward repetition. RIYL: Water Damage, Elori Saxl, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, claire rousay, Ex-Easter Island Head