Aethereal (2022)
“Aethereal - a "sibling release" to Perceive - leans more towards ambient, tilting and shuffling horizontal Intensities but concerned with degrees of quiet awe and mild trepidation; it can be difficult at times to say where the vocals end and the instruments begin, but perhaps that isn't the point.”
-Raymond Cummings, The Wire January 2023
Where “Perceive” has some layering of rhythms or ‘sonic recurrences’, “Aethereal” doesn’t have any. The four tracks – sadly only 40 minutes – of music is a crossover between ambient and drone. You can play them over and over as they do precisely what proper ambient should do: They enrich the atmosphere of your immediate environment. The origin of the sounds is mostly Leslie’s voice, and I mean… Wow. You can recognise a voice as such only 30 minutes into the CD (“Mourning”). But also, the ‘cello’ is her voice. And… And… As is written in the promo sheet: “Keffer can mimic brass, wind, and strings with the manipulation of her voice in ways that are unseen elsewhere in the genre of ambient/experimental music.”
Another fragment from the promo sheet is this: “The result is challenging and innovative ambient music that is raw and down to earth, but also graceful and compelling” that’s a good promo sheet because, as your humble reviewer, I have nothing to add.
-Vital Weekly 1371