5.1.20 by Ryan Masteller
Let me stop you right there, OK? Right at “I visited Australia for my day-job as a photographer’s assistant.” Already you’ve stoked the pangs of jealousy in the heart of this wanderlust-struck music aficionado, one who’s never been to Australia and who may never get there. There’s a lengthy flight to the other side of the world that I’d have to deal with, and also it’s probably pretty expensive. I know one, maaaybe three people in Australia (and I may be confusing one’s domicile with New Zealand). And who knows if there will even be an airline industry in a few months. (Oh right, the bailout!)
(Fun fact: my parents were applying for jobs in Australia before I was born, so it’s possible I could have grown up in the outback, by crikey.)
So, Dylan, I guess we’ll have to experience Australia vicariously through your Inner Islands tape “A Dingo Crossing a Stream,” the title a warning for anyone with small children to keep them close at all times. But no, let’s remove all of our humanness from “Dingo,” shall we? Let’s just let the Dingo be, let it lap at the water, let it saunter into the bush. That’s what an Inner Islands release would condition us to do: observe, document, reflect. Allow time to pass. Allow nature to take its course. With that in mind, Dylan, we’ll have to thank you for perpetuating the style, stringing together pools of rippling synthesizer that perfectly synchronize with the time lapse of “A Pool Deeply Gouged Out by Water” or “A River Drying Out,” long-form actions that stretch across generations.
And with so many stretches of space in Australia, it’s easy to superimpose these sounds and imaginings on the place itself. By the time we’re ready to “Take a Feather from the Old Pelican,” the sidelong closer, we’ve been indoctrinated into the geography and ready to go on walkabout. Stuck as I am in the United States, my walkabout must of necessity be a spiritual one. But hey, I need all the exercise I can get! Too bad it won’t be on site Down Under. But thanks, Dylan, for recording your impressions of the place for us. Now, the Dreamtime awaits!
Edition of 100 from Inner Islands.
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