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Encountering these two albums back to back, Dear Unknown feels as though it is entering us at a level different from that of other music. Anne Garner straight away creates a distinctive listening zone of real, if exhausted tenderness - while the Dear Unknown (Instrumental) version gently settles atop the beautiful bliss brought on by the first eight renditions of this superb venture. Through both releases you believe you are in sure hands - always aware of what the storyteller is attempting to convey. The most significant feature of most of this effort is Garner's vocal work. There is a spacey, special beauty in the way she pulls lyrics apart, elongating them so that they stretch toward the infinite - which is the entire point of the Spacemusic genre. With its rush of tearless tones, palliative piano, fragile flute, and droning drifts of daybreak, all mingling with an ethereal alien beauty of voice and words, Dear Unknown seems to be breathing more than manufacturing music. We hear the musician alone wavering and fragile above hazy electronic chords, then further in such otherworldly energy makes it seem as if this star has seen more than others of her kind. The designs are intimate and exact - with a self-generated glow radiating beneath the chill shadow of a despondent beauty. The character and energy of the music making, the level of detail, the freshness, all lead the listener to a sense of having strayed into someone else's dream. With its message of hope and healing Dear Unknown has the qualities of an experience outside of time. As useful for thoughtful introspection as it is for forgetting oneself entirely, in every outing with this music we receive much more than we seek.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 5 January 2023 |
