Search - :: Tranquility - Sacred Forest

IC B. (icberry)
Reviewed on 3/31/2017...

A few words about this recording, which, from the cover and the title, would seem to be offering something perhaps "new age-y" that may or may not have something to do with Forests.

In fact, it offers more, in terms of subtlety than the cover (or title...or even the font of the title) would suggest. Rather than quickly-outdated sythesizer-swoops and misplaced soprano sax noodlings, Suzanne Doucet and Chuck Plaisance's "Tranquility" is a kind of minimal soundscape that's a whole lot more like hypnosis-music than smooth jazz. The musical arc is repetitive and subtle, and the overall sound remains at one quiet level, which allows the listener to gradually make note of the natural sounds that emerge to really "make" the entire composition. You won't be humming the tunes, but you might find yourself listening, focusing and speculating about the "Forest" sounds.

But what does it sound like? First, this is not a pure "Nature sounds" recording that includes nothing else but "The Forest". On the other hand, it isn't just nice-music-with-a-few-birdy-tweets. What you have here is a low-volume wash of synths blended with soft ahhh-ahhhhhh vocal melody (probably Doucet, a trained singer) and a soundscape of wind, leaves, crackles and other natural sounds.

If you are very selective about collecting pure "Nature Sounds", you might look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you like rather hypnotic not-trendy aural experiments, you might find this interesting. Again, it is a work that "works" because it IS low-key and cyclical, not because it's attention-grabbingly "interesting".

Doucet and Plaisance are collaborators here, as they were on "Voice of the Wind".