Review Summary: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Wind was originally distributed with art depicting a grid of cuneiform, which I find it more fitting than the current iteration. Such text, as with the music, is distant and difficult to translate. Masin himself seems to operate behind a veil, a shroud that not only covers the album with a tepid softness, but obfuscates the artist himself. He speaks hardly any words, and presents no arching narrative. He meanders and wades under waves of pillowy sounds, which can sometimes come close to suffocating. Within the ebb and flow of embryonic synths are the muted wailings of a man's consciousness. What we are hearing is a musical solipsism, a recording of what it feels to be alone. Sometimes we'll hear a lilting horn ("The Wind Song") and sometimes one that is far less certain ("Underwater Current"). And certainty is hardly something Masin seems to have been aiming for. I'd be hard pressed to find another album, especially one of the style (new age/ambient), of such tangible vulnerability and so genuinely personal.
For fans of staring at the ceiling and a lo-fi aesthetic.
