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Sam Rosenthal — The Width of Shadows
(Projekt no #, 2026, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-07-02

The Width of Shadows Cover art

Amorphous shapes and formless structures abound in this collection of minimalist pieces by Projekt Label and Black Tape For A Blue Girl founder Sam Rosenthal. The album’s eight compositions were mostly ideas that work was started on, later forgotten, and even later brought back into the foreground as the basis for something new, very different than its original intent. Every piece seems to be built from a base of raw elementary electronics, very slow moving, slow changing drifts from heaven, perhaps one droning chord with very subtle nuances in each of its components, shimmering and swirling around the listener in a stirring array of sound. The brief opener “Sunflow” conceals a melody stretched out into an interminable, beautiful endlessness, though before one will recognize it for what it is, it’s already gone, moving into the dreamy “Flare Equilibrium,” a piece that evolves slowly and builds over its seven minute duration with intent, deep caverns of sounds unexplored mixing freely with the stirring slow-moving molten chaos at the surface; one can attempt to stop and listen to what’s going past in the soundcurrent, or just close your eyes and flow with it. The deep cavernous sounds of “Filament” might at times seem like they are spinning, or even about to break down the walls around you, but ultimately harmless, as they eventually break and slowly fade away. The title track begins with some field recordings mixed with some powerful overlapping droning waves, bright but subtly colored and all seeming to mixing together effortlessly. It seems like everything is leading up to something, that something being the massive seventeen minute closer “Orbital Equilibrium,” an ongoing vaporous patchwork of slow-moving drones that obscure one another as they proceed, something truly beautiful and unique among all others, a moving soundscape that slowly begins to fade from the midpoint, evaporating slowly. The Width of Shadows is surely something that fans of ambient sounds will want to immerse themselves in.

Filed under: New releases, 2026 releases

Related artist(s): Sam Rosenthal / As Lonely as Dave Bowman

More info
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-width-of-shadows

 

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