Fluid Radio (UK)

On Chorus (Dusk/Dawn), Taylor Deupree uses a single eurorack synthesizer oscillator to recreate the dawn chorus. The dawn of spring is also the death of winter – snow is melting, the days are longer, and the evening is skylit once more. At its heart, Chorus (Dusk/Dawn) is a record of optimism and positivity, of looking forward and embracing change. In fact, it not only embraces the eventual seasonal shift, but looks to speed it up, attempting to hurry it along. At the same time, Chorus develops as patiently as one would expect from Deupree. Here, however, he aims to speed up time rather than stop it in its tracks.

Every summer, the dawn chorus surrounds his New York studio. Both calming and relentless, its music is made up of crickets, katydids, and cicadas, and Deupree recreates the song, and the atmosphere, with an astonishing likeness, made all the more impressive due to its synthetic production. The natural world morphs into the artificial. Sound emerges from winter’s silence as the digital recreates and supplants nature.

Chorus is a response to Deupree’s immediate natural surroundings, as well as an imaginary recreation of a brighter season. It waits in anticipation of the real thing, a dawn which isn’t quite there in the real world, as it’s still in the process of ripening. Accompanying the artificial insects are a series of lilting, drooping sine waves, which are gently inserted and smoothly smear the rest of their music. Even among its ambient groundwork, a sense of urgency lingers. The music feels like a gentle push, and that isn’t something one would normally associate with Deupree’s work. This is something of a change in both theme and execution, while still offering ambient music of the highest quality.