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Seaworthy & Matt Rösner explore small intimate spaces with “Snowmelt”. Whilst I am somewhat familiar with Seaworthy, Matt Rösner is someone I have been watching for a long time. I find Matt’s work to be that sublime small-scale stuff that makes you want to pay attention to your surroundings. Here he’s in a slightly different context yet there is that gracious beauty that adorns all of his work. The duo is in sync throughout the duration of the album playing off of each other’s strengths in a way that adds to the inherent dignity they have for their surroundings.

“Porcupine Stream” starts the album off on a high note for it features a focusing in on their tiny gestures. The crackle of “Rennix Forest” has a rather raw visceral feeling, with the sounds of various items being crushed underfoot adding to the sensory experience. On “Spencer Creek Ptv1” the song has a spaghetti western quality to it, bone dry and laid bare. “Spencer Creek Pt 2” goes a bit more into the abstract, finding a sense of place so thoroughly. The snaps and pops of “Charlotte’s Pass Pt 2” has such a kindness, as the electronic and acoustic blend into one. Birdsong adds to the tender tones of “Saw Creek” an angelic sound that serves as the highlight of the entire album, as if everything was working up to this. With a bit of a subdued air “Charlotte’s Pass Pt 3” closes the album out.

Love for the surroundings is one of my personal favorite things to hear in any work, and Seaworthy & Matt Rösner do it such reverence in “Snowmelt” that the album quite literally transports you away into their considered compassionate realm.