Archetypes

   

Archetypes is the fourth compilation from Touchtheplants, the imprint and multidisciplinary creative environment founded by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Featuring new works from Smith alongside friends and fellow practitioners of experimental synthesis — Akemie, Asy Saavedra, Kaela, Reggie Watts, Scott Gilmore, and Superposition (Matthew Davis and Boreta) — Archetypes collects sonic responses to the thematic prompt: If you weren't a musician, what would you be, and what would it sound like through a song? This resulting set presents a path of vivid and abstract hypotheticals, imagined alternate paths reflecting the range of human curiosity. It is boundless, playful, and peaceful music enriched with notions of ritual lifestyle, identity, and self-discovery.
 
California producer Scott Gilmore contributes two tracks: the punchy instrumental "He's Not Here" and the languid opener "Four Days Long," which first places the listener with cicadas at night before bouncing through a synth/guitar/drum machine sequence in which lyrics suggest waiting for days, perhaps simply reclining in thought.
 
Asy Saavedra's evocative, piano-led "Milk" ponders the maternal instinct, "wondering if it's something unique to earth animals and if the universe is cruel/random, or if the universe is maternal," says the Swedish-American composer and one half of Chaos Chaos. "I feel like my music identity takes so much from me, such sacrifice… It's almost like music takes the place of love in my life. Milk represents the maternal and what I might have been if it weren't for music."
 
Kaela chose the archetype of The Herbalist for her meditative off-the-grid track, a tempo-changing nod to a trade rooted in learning and compassion for both humans and plants. The Los Angeles-based musician and member of M83 adds, "This song is a sonic day-in-the-life of one such herbalist, from morning to night. While writing this I imagined her waking up and greeting the day, going to check on the garden, gathering her equipment, going on a foraging expedition, following a creek that becomes a rushing river, finding a rare flower or herb, returning home, and pausing to take in the sunset, preparing the plants at her workstation, and drinking tea under the stars before finally climbing back into bed." 
 
The album reaches its most active state in the middle arc. Akemie's "1605" is a bubbling piece of starry pop electronica. Above sugary synth lines and pulsing beats, the Portland-based producer sings," 1605, it happens all the time, you hold me in the palm of your hand, the world is mine." Later, improvisation extraordinaire Reggie Watts gives Archetypes an anthem with Impending Relief," layering a percussive bed to deliver his self-doubt conquering mantra, "I don't want to be afraid no more, no I don't want to listen to this." The energy dials back for Superposition, the project of Matthew Davis and Boreta, who render the atmospheric "Sky Mind" to a serene effect.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith weaves her signature textural vignettes throughout Archetypes, lending the collection a connective presence. The album closes on Smith's 4-piece suite, which crests during "Sunbelly," an arpeggiated, symphonic burst of strings and hums that exemplifies Touchtheplants’ intention with this series, a project dedicated to exploring the spirit through sonic expression.

– Dave Sutton

 

Available August 30th, 2024 on Bandcamp