Alexandra Spence - A Necessary Softness [Room40]

Scheduled for release via Australia's ever active Room40-imprint on April 16th, 2k21 is "A Necessary Softness", the latest cassette album release crafted by Alexandra Spence which consists of a total of four tracks spread out over roughly 40 minutes - with all of them being recorded in the period between 2014 and 2020 in locations in Vancouver, Hong Kong and Sydney. Starting of with the multi-layered, well tempered Ambient tones and tender bass pulses of "Tidewater" later incorporating bits of Spoken Word, soft, yet somewhat clanging Found Sounds as well as an intense interplay of hypnotic loops and even a Noize-related climax we experience Alexandra Spence further carving out her own, seemingly hermetically secluded and isolated niche within the field of Deep Listening Music in "Waves" which is based on and carefully built around Field Recordings of exactly those whilst "Bell, Fern" takes on a surprisingly ominous and haunted variation of scraping Dark Ambient in its very first minutes, providing relief with friendly, chiming bells and floating sinewave layers before finally turning into a soundtrack for your most unsettling, fear-mongering and gorey nightmares for a second whereas the concluding "Rain" waves goodbye in a more crackly, somewhat vintage sounding manner, partly even evoking memories of pure surface noise for the odd vinyl enthusiast out there. Check.