
Science has been exploring how some birds, as in the case of frigates (who will sustain flight for sometimes days or weeks on end) seemingly cope without sleep. While on land, some avian creatures simultaneously use both hemispheres of the brain to do so, and there is evidence of just one hemisphere engaged at a time, depending on ecological demands. And so scientists theorize the same phenomenon occurs mid-flight for birds. There must be a restorative calm for these often musical beings, found while sleeping in clouds, high above the sea -- the serenity that might follow while dreaming in that wide-open space, where threat of predators must exponentially diminish, where solitude abounds, while waves and currents lift and swell underneath. Do birds dream? If they do, what is that experience?
Such is the sonic palette of Xqui's Ambients, where nothing significantly disrupts this feeling of floating and drifting, barring occasional pockets of crescendoing, turbulent distortions and noise. These nine tracks are a kind of dream-state. They are filled with prolonged chords and droning, reversed in places, with textural noise, all soaked in heavy reverb. It offers the listener pathways — perhaps a road to clarity, potentially even peaceful states. For us humans, these arrangements find perfect placement, when lying flat on one’s back, eyes closed, focused on the rise and fall of the chest during meditative breathing.
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