Season Cycle: Spring came out for the northern spring, but here in the Antipodes, the album came out at the start of autumn. Although the season is opposite of what Ed Herbers seemed to have in mind, the album still works on a tonne of different levels.
This short six-track, 24-minute EP covers a lot of depth with relatively short tracks for the genre, ranging from the shortest, at just over two minutes, to the longest, at just over five. Don’t be fooled. Herbers covers a lot of vibey droneness in that space.
The first thing noticeable is the increased use of the piano compared some of Herbers’ other albums. This fits right into the drone underlay, giving the tracks a neo-classical feel while not departing very much from the music for which Herbers is well-known. The music is easy, soothing, and calm. This is the type of music you can sit down and just ooze into the sound, losing yourself in a soundscape of caressing notes and hums. Or you can have it going in the background while you do something else, like write a review about an Ed Herbers album.
The tracks begin with a sombre, serious feel. The slowness evoking the beginning of spring, those first few weeks when the world is still awakening from the three-month hibernation of winter and the melting of the snow in some places. When you hit “Dawn Chorus,” the energy picks up with the introduction of a sort of whimsy and joy. This is not to say you are going to get thunderous beats of the type found in a psytrance rave created by people slamming back far too much ecstasy and Red Bull, but rather the mood subtly shifts as your journey into spring reaches a milestone. It is from this central track where the EP pivots into a celebration of the season’s new life as you travel towards the finer times of summer and the return of life in all its riotous colour to the previously grey world around you.
For those who live in a four-season region, you’re going to be able to relate to it really well. For many of us who live in the sub-tropics or tropics, where the seasons are basically wet, and hot and wet, there is less to connect with on an ontological level. However, the music itself still can be related to turning points in the year. In Aotearoa, we are moving towards Matariki at the time of writing, and this album would definitely work as a reflection on the turning point of the year where our planting season (kōanga) comes about after this important week in the Māori year. The promise of new life and new abundance in the world around us, in nature, is something Season Cycle: Spring can still evoke even in a cyclone-prone region like the South Pacific, as it is in spring.
Ed Herbers is someone I have long been a fan of, and he produces some of the most reflective, meditative sounds I know. When he and Exit Chamber (of whom I am a real fanboy) collaborated on Self-, it was sign from God. My point is that anything Herbers produces is fantastic. In Season Cycle: Spring, Herbers has kept his quality, as well as pushed his art in a new direction. This is worth getting and adding to your drone playlist.
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