Review Summary: Pure bliss.
There are certain albums that take you to another world entirely. Ambient in general is a great genre for that. Lush, sometimes dark and eerie, soundscapes wash over the listener like a warm blanket. When done right, ambient music can make you feel nostalgia, hope, and happiness. Space ambient in particular can transport the listener into the cosmic vibes of outer space miles and miles away. As many of you know, I've been having a difficult time with mental health lately, but I discovered Michael Stearns’
Planetary Unfolding, released almost 45 years ago, at the time I needed it most.
This gorgeous album will make the listener forget his or her problems for at least an hour by the sheer magic in the atmosphere. As opposed to my other favorite genre, extreme metal, ambient is all about vibes and not riffs. ‘In the Beginning’ is the perfect opener with the twinkly synthesizers whisking you away to make you feel like you're floating amongst the stars. The next track, ‘Toto, I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore’, an ode to the 1939 classic
The Wizard of Oz, makes you feel as if you're stuck in the twister that dropped Dorothy right into the middle of a fantasy land.
Fantasy is all a part of the ambient genre. The tranquillity of
Planetary Unfolding is calming to a point of being trance-inducing. ‘Wherever Two or More Are Gathered’ is like a love song to the person you hold nearest and dearest to your heart and is extremely celestial in nature. Then you have ‘A Life in the Gravity Well’, which is, quite frankly, exactly how it sounds. The beautiful keyboards make you feel as if you're defying gravity and floating freely amongst all of the planets in the solar system.
The final two tracks, ‘As the Earth Kissed the Moon’ and ‘Something's Moving’, tie the album together perfectly with field recordings and bird sounds, acting as if the listener of this masterpiece is careening back down from space to the green grass of the earth. These tracks have an almost summery feeling to them all while retaining the heavenly, extraterrestrial soundscapes. These field recordings and nature sounds mixed with the Berlin school-influenced keys are the perfect way to end an all-around brilliant album.
Planetary Unfolding is an album that can make anyone fall in love with ambient music. Even people who may not be a fan of the genre as a whole could most likely admit that this album is nothing short of otherworldly. I love ambient music because it makes me forget about all of my problems. It can be dark and brooding, or like
Planetary Unfolding, can be some of the most grand and spectacularly epic music you've ever heard. If you're having a rough time with life as of late, give this album a listen, it just might turn everything around in a positive way for you.
