I’m a little exhausted this eve, trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends before the New Year kicks in. I’m really trying to avoid dragging any of the 2019 baggage into 2020, unless, of course, it’s the really good stuff from the past 12 months. But this year’s been a strange, tricky, and uneven one. The highs have been fairly spectacular, while the lows have felt pretty down. Finding the balance has proven to be quite the challenge.
Part of this process, of course, is the authoring of these various entries on the blog. It might seem silly, but I really do feel that music offers a calming equilibrium to the metaphorical storms of the mind and spirit. Call it sound therapy, if your will. It’s certainly helped me get through the rougher patches, even if a given song just evokes a temporary state of peace. But it’s peace, nonetheless, so I’ll take it.
I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with all this. But when I selected tonight’s entry, all of this suddenly took to the page and poured forth. On that note, let me introduce an appropriately themed electronic opus titled “Forgiveness,” from Swedish ambient composer Magnus Birgersson, better known by his stage name Solar Fields.
“Forgiveness” is a lush, sprawling instrumental tome bursting with humbling optimism and exuberant, exalted peaks. It’s a modestly constructed piece of synthesized progression, beginning in the calmest of places, building and escalating into a blinding wash of shimmering shoegaze sound, then tapering off into a midground meditation that feels totally complete.
I’d like to think that this is Solar Fields’ way of illustrating the path of forgiveness, and ultimately some form of redemption. But like many of Birgersson’s works, and there are many, it’s best left as a pure listening experience, rather than a critical interpretation. It’s nine-plus minutes of immaculate instrumental sensation, and it’s meant to be felt, plain and simple.
I should also note that like previous Solar Fields’ works, a single track doesn’t necessarily function as a standalone song, but more often than not, as a piece in a conceptual album-length journey. “Forgiveness” is no different, slotting at track number four in the aural journey known as “Ourdom.”
I just happened to hear it out of context, while enduring my 11 hour holiday hell drive back to Los Angeles from Northern California, courtesy of Mother Nature snowing over my quickest main route home. And as I’ve pontificated earlier in this entry, this musical composition did provide a moment of calm in an otherwise excruciatingly long traffic-filled trek.
Below is the embed for Solar Field’s “Forgiveness.”
Enjoy!
“Forgiveness” from the 2018 album “Ourdom.”
If you like this one, I highly recommend checking out some of Birgersson’s other releases, including the excellent 2018 concept album “Ourdom,” from which “Forgiveness comes from.
He’s been making music as Solar Fields since 2001, mostly ambient soundscapes like this one, but also some uptempo psytrance efforts as well. 2007’s “Earthshine” is a fantastic testament to that.
For good measure, I’ve included embeds to both those albums below, should you feel so inclined to get lost in the Solar Fields sound.
Until the next round …
