I have forever been a staunch ally of ambient music. Whether it was my first foray into Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music For Airports, his work with David Bowie, the Aphex Twins’ Selected Ambient Works 85-92, or even the metal assault, but ambient march of ISIS (the band), all of it painted landscapes of extraterrestrials, vast oceans, cosmic dreams, and lost worlds. Music that opened something else, not fixated within three minute pop songs, but music that moves on past its sound. It always fascinated me.
It helps that many of the above musicians were risk takers, with their works forward thinking, and not heaped with praise until the rest of the world caught up. Ferrarilover takes those same ingredients and makes an album of deep whale songs with her guitar and little else on the album Seventh Sky. There are no hit songs on this record, but music made for art galleries, calming down anxious pets, and sitting on a beach. It’s music to get lost in, wander around, and come out with something different every time. Ferrarilover is the moniker for guitarist Nico Wyland, and while it may take a special time to listen to her work, it is very worth it.
Wyland’s guitar wails with reverb on “Slow Motion Pirouette”, dances a slow journey on “Iridescent Prism”, and is an orchestra unto itself on “Mysterious Feather”. In fact, on some of the songs it is hard to tell that she is playing a guitar at all. The only real criticism I have is that the individual songs tend to run together and would have worked well as a complete symphony rather than numbered songs, but as a full record, it is a tremendous debut.