June 17, 2022 - Leaving Records
Beginnings are the best. First time seeing the stars in the night sky, your first kisses, the first time you realize that someone else completely gets you as you are, no acting required. What happens if we spend forever existing in the beginning? Is that a bad thing at all? Or is it actually something that’s really good for us, something medicinal, something that automatically occupies the part of the mind which spirals itself into oblivion when it has nothing else to do? Is what it’s craving just a constant state of new? These are the questions that come to mind as I pop Brooklyn-based artist Time Wharp’s Spiro World into my mouth and chew on it.
Strings, drums, saxophones, dripping bass, and synthesized keyboard musings—all are potent with chaotic bubbling and twinkling optimism, which at times reminds me of 70s psychedelia and the alternative reality it promised, that synths would bring a better and more equitable world for all. The album definitely exists somewhere in the jazz and muzak realm, the land of the instrumental, with chords that question like reflections in a lake in the wind. It breaks out of the edges of that genre just enough to demand more ambiguity and insist that you nod your head in agreement to its non-identity.
There is plenty of form to this music to keep your brain engaged, plenty to chew on after you place it in your mouth and before you swallow. But the fresh, underlying energy, the endorphins that defy gravity, leave their inception to your interpretation. Spiro World, also known as One Must First Become Aware Of The Body, is a great contemplative album for commuting, for musing as you stare out the window at the passing wilds of “wilderness,” or at the magnificent endless “wilderness” of the train tunnels. Maybe it will move stagnant energy. Maybe you’ll re-discover how it feels to begin again as you humdrum through your day-to-day. ☔