Sonmi451 -A Routine Red Eye (Intraset)

The Slow Music Movement
Feb 14
1 min read

Sonmi451 is a long time visitor to TSMM's blog and playlists. Known to his family as Bernard Zwijzen from small town Belgium, he's been keeping himself busy for the last fifteen years making lovingly detailed ambient soundscapes.

I'm not sure if his latest single, "A Routine Redeye" is the starting pistol for a forthcoming album or a one off single for Canadian label Intraset, the only information I received was that it was composed using field recordings taken in remote and rural parts of British Colombia, Canada. Did the label send him their holiday field recordings or fly him over to dodge grizzlies and roam the forested backwaters with his Zoom? Who knows, perhaps time will tell?

All I know is that this track has been transported far from its bucolic origins to a galaxy far far away. The sounds of our feathered friends, unpolluted mountain streams and Canada's insect population get things rolling, but it's not long before futuristic electronics launch the track upwards and outwards picking up some interstellar transmission frequencies on the way which weave seductive ASMR vocals and radio static through the ambience, as rhythmic cow bells and the distant throb, possibly of the hyperdrive cooling fan provide some gravitational pull to the otherwise weightless soundscape. It's a mesmerising transmission that sits between worlds and sounds great on repeat, let's hope there is more in the pipeline.