Great Waitress - Back, Before [Splitrec. 030]

Put out on the circuit on September 16th, 2k22 as cat.no. 030 of the Australian imprint Splitrec. is "Back, Before", the fourth full length album effort created by the trio that is Great Waitress - and their second for the label after their 2011 debut "Lucid". Recorded pre-pandemic and taking four years to finalize the two extended pieces aptly named "Back" and "Before" see Magda Mayas, Monica Brooks and Laura Altman provide a deeply spiritual take of what could be described as naturalistic Ambient / Listening Music created by an ethereal, tender and carefully layered combination of piano, accordion, clarinet and feedbacks which elevates these instruments to new and previously unexperienced levels which might be closer to a score accompanying a trip into the realm of ancient dreamtime than to actual western composition. This being said, this evaluation is probably even more true for the 25+ minutes stretching "Before" which seems to amalgamate both Minimal Ambient and DarkJazz in a well time defying and dreamlike manner which will also speak to fans and followers of electroacoustic composition and microtonal recording approaches. If these terms happen to be a fixture in your musical vocabulary "Back, Before" might be one album up your alley. Go check.