Guesswork [LP]

Greg Stasiw - Guesswork [LP]

Experimental musician Greg Stasiw presents debut album of radiant, free-flowing electronics on Guesswork. Music for psychoactive exploration made over a four-year period, incorporating ambient, minimalism, intricate sound design and Japanese environmental music. Greg Stasiw is an experimental musician, visual artist and writer from New England, Northeastern USA. An itinerant polymath, Stasiw has spent time living, working and traveling in New York, Tokyo, Toronto, Paris, Boston, and Bratislava. As well as studying anthropology, animation and illustration, Stasiw has always had a close connection with music. With his debut album Guesswork, the aural and visual inspirations that underpin Stasiw's creative life intersect, in a pure, radiant soundworld of space, depth and immaculate clarity. Futuristic, pellucid soundscapes incorporating ambient, minimalism, intricate sound design, and Japanese environmental music are deftly arranged with evanescent chimes, serene tone float, suspended organ notes and curious sci-fi resonances. Like stepping into some space age meditation garden, if soundtracked by the likes of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Harold Budd, Norman McLaren, and Pauline Anna Strom, the thirteen tracks of Guesswork create an exceptional listening experience of wide-eyed wonder, sleek tranquility, gentle melancholy, and singular discovery. Initially inspired by a proposed collaboration with the visual artist Philippe Shewchenko, Stasiw was nevertheless compelled by Shewchenko's visuals. He continued dabbling with the sound pieces he had created for the shelved project, ultimately arriving at an unprecedented culmination. Opening with sonorous pulses of drone on "Signature," the album proceeds through the idyllic electronica of "Field" -- music for interplanetary flotation tanks -- and into the gorgeous sotto voce piano of "Plant." "Humidity" evokes verdant off-world wildlife with resonant percussive echoes and abundant bird song, while "Boutique" combines crystalline scales and enveloping ambient vapors. Like entering different zones in a strange new world, these tracks all seem to summon distinct environments; a slow-moving scene of underwater calm, a surreal wilderness, a fantastical garden, a playground, a sacred space. For Stasiw, Guesswork is the speculative outcome of his interest in how sound and space interrelate, as well as the result of channeling his inspirations. It represents a miraculously engaging, idiosyncratic soundworld from an accomplished (non-)musician, content to do guesswork; to see where it might lead and what wonders it might open up. 01. Signature 02. Xylem 03. Field 04. Cinder 05. Plant 06. Distance 07. Sequence 08. Humidity 09. Arizona 10. Prow 11. Adobe 12. Boutique 13. Audience