In the boundless realm of ambient music, few albums feel like a hug from mother nature herself. Of course if anyone should make such an album, it should be Greenplant, your neighbourhood plant turned artiste.
With the release of morning in the park, the duo of Conor Nickerson and Antoine Gallois – the enigmatic ‘caretakers’ of Greenplant – paint a sonic landscape out of warm acoustic textures and a captivating array of audio samples sourced from nature herself.
From the opening notes, a sense of serenity and wonder permeates the air, heralding the start of a soul-stirring expedition. While Greenplant’s first album was more saturated with digital textures and carried a denser sonic atmosphere, morning in the park is decidedly lighter, folkier, more organic. The delicate contrast between ethereal flute melodies and gentle nylon strummed harmonies results in a feeling that is familiar and otherworldly, much like a nice frolic through the park.
A defining feature of this album lies in the seamless integration of field recordings sourced from the nature in and around Montreal’s Parc Maisonneuve. The sounds of a gentle breeze, rustling leaves, distant bird calls, serve as integral components, instruments themselves really, interwoven into the fabric of these compositions. Each sample breathes life into the music, evoking a vivid sense of place. Near the end of “waking dreams i had in winter” a siren can be heard passing by that almost sounds like the wailing of the wind.
While the album has been organised into a track-list, following the order of a poem penned by Nickerson, morning in the park is best heard in one go, for many goes. Much praise for this botanical anomaly.
