Perceive (2022)
"Perceive" is Leslie Keffer's first full-length installment in what will surely be a series of mainly ambient vocal works, which she says were attempts to "capture the feelings I became aware of after having spiritual experiences, and interpret them through music".
She also describes the "encounters" as "tactile" for her, and said she "liked the idea of translating these emotions musically instead of feeling it internally in my body". Essentially, she feels that her level of sensitivity has given way to a form of synesthesia that she experiences primarily within her body, and tries to document with her voice. "Perceive" began from Keffer singing while in different trance states, and developed from that very basic impetus. The result is challenging and innovative ambient music that is raw and down to earth, but also graceful and compelling.
-Original album description from No Part Of It
“…the more recent Perceive, part of her move into ambient, is mellow and more cinematic by comparison. Synthesizers and effects are stirred into the cauldron, while faded vocal harmonies swim in and out of the mix: a mild industrial crust congeals over everything. Listening to the somnolent "Quake" or the kaleidoscopic "Tremble" is like watching an unnatural chemical sunset sear itself into your field of vision.”
-Raymond Cummings, The Wire January 2023
“First, she uses her voice, next to radios, synthesizers, beats and sounds. I read that information after hearing her album, so that bit of information came as a surprise, as that’s not how I perceived (pun intended) the music. Maybe she uses a lot of processing to alter the voice, which stretches out into dense, atmospheric music clouds. Along with spacious synthesizer tones, this works very well. Only occasionally, she uses beats, such as in ‘Quake’, which is a slow bass drum sort of loop going in the background of the piece. That’s how she does in the other pieces with rhythm as well. The foreground she uses to play the myriad of drones. The rhythm also brings some variation to the album, which works very well. Instead of several pure drone-based pieces, there is now a distinction within the material. There are four pieces on the CDR, but in the download, four more could, for all I know, have been on the CDR anyway. It still fits. Of all the pieces, ‘Mourning’ is the only one that is obviously built from various layers of voice material and has that mournful quality. Keffer’s pieces are long, averaging nine minutes, but each holds my attention throughout, and when the album was over, I pressed play again and went right back in. Great stuff.”
-Vital Weekly #1369