“Whitney Johnson is the maestro behind the project Matchless. As a sociology major following a grant she received to create sound art, Johnson’s work delves into the unpredictable world of tape recordings, light, and movement; altering the notion of space and where sound is emanating. The experiments with drones and walls of sound she spent time consumed by seem almost like they have a metaphysical quality that happens to also be musical; you hear the richness in tones, you can see how they compliment.
When she released “Seraphastra” on Digitalis Industries, Trouble In Mind re-released it later in 2014 on vinyl, the result of a wider release for an artist not creating format friendly music, is to me a nod to Johnson’s unique learning experiences blending her research with her own emotion, you’re at the hands of an artist who loves the investigative journey, savoring every fabric of tone-blight or blisters she may receive along the way to at least perhaps say, “Hey…here is what I have to give…” “Fifty layers of sound that move in relation that are mediative.” When music/art carves a niche in an otherwise trending system that aggregates via a funnel of, say, dance-beat or the indie-pop realm where singles are still the currency, It makes the right energy move where it is lacking. Just like limbs that can atrophy when bound or a flower can whether without the light, investigation of self through discovery moves energy into this very opposing non-comodifable domain. Even if for the pure speculation of your thoughts as you listen, they have already tricked the consumptive-soaked palate of the world.
Maybe it’s the shamanistic qualities, or the photons on fire that make Somnaphoria and “The Law of Pure Will,” illuminate analogous to its peers, or just the euphoria it lends to my life that makes me excited for this trilogy of installments proposed by Whitney. However, I must warn you, If it mattered as to why, I wouldn’t have written this article. The surveyance of myself through her own work gave me little choice.
Purchase: https://itunes.apple.com/album/law-pure-will-or-lamentation/id993222010?i=993222019&ign-mpt=uo%3D5