The rich, mulchy sonic environments of Slowfoam’s Worlding With Earth are the optimistic soundtrack to post-Anthropocentric realignment, subsuming the human, natural, and synthetic into one shimmering whole. Coming together over the last three years, this luscious music is akin to damp trundles across soggy marshlands and dripping green fern forests, ambient soundscapes scattered with discernible detritus, the odd voice, the odd saxophone. Byrd found inspiration from the ‘worlding with earth’ concept of Donna Haraway, sitting at the crossroads of technoscience and ecofeminism. Its emphasis lies on collaboration with the more-than-human world.

These overtures for an imagined realm synthesise something new by blending electronic sounds with various instruments and field recordings collected in Croatia, London, and Berlin, where Slowfoam’s Madelyn Byrd is currently based. “The word synthesis itself contains a plurality of meaning,” they explain, “suggesting the combination of two disparate entities to create something new, infinitely generative.” The organic/digital beauty of this music toys with such distinctions as natural vs. artificial. Beside, as Byrd asks, “what is synthetic life but an extension of the biological ecosystems of which humanity constitutes a mere fraction?”

-Tristan Bath