Forest Kelley – Silt CS

3/29/22 street date. ships week prior.

Forest Kelley’s debut album, Silt, is the culmination of a decade-long sonic realization of a singular vision: nematoda, annelida, and other abyssal worms inhabiting the aphotic depths, sensing each other without light. Living and cavorting amongst a carpet of compressed dust and organic matter, as unaware of our existence as we are of theirs. To create this ‘soundscape ecology’, Kelley began developing custom software in 2018. It allows for sounds to function as organisms: to be born, express themselves, change through friction with their world, and then dissipate, transcend, or die. Silt represents a snapshot of this world; the raw material for this particular instance includes guitar-based recordings dating from 2004 in collaboration with Jacob Uretsky. Through Kelley’s exacting and intuitive selection of the results, we are presented with an ever-evolving selection of sounds. On their surface perhaps intersecting with ambient dub techno tropes, but Silt draws the listener ever deeper into the zone with its organically shifting textures and events.