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Reviews

The Adelaidean — Nine Breaths
(Projekt no#, 2026, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-02-15

Nine Breaths Cover art

While it may seem that a double-CD length album (even though at this point it’s only available as a download) for an ambient / electronic composer may be a bit excessive, the two sets in Nine Breaths are in fact very different — the first is a collection of shorter pieces (between four and eleven minutes each) that encompasses a measure of variety within the floating / synth / drone styles, each of the eight cuts being distinctly different from one another, while the second set is one long-form minimalist floating ambient piece clocking in at around 70 minutes — yet both share many things in common. Composer Sean Williams (a.k.a. TheAdelaidean) is also a writer and a poet, and he drew on the foundation of the haiku, something that is short enough to read in a single breath, hence the nine breaths. Each of the nine pieces has a haiku related to it that contains the piece’s title — and since this is a music download which comes with no printed documentation, the listener will need to go to Williams’ website in order to read the particular haiku that inspired each of the pieces (link provided below). Now to the music: to date we have covered around eight or nine of his releases, plus a couple collaborations he has done with Deepspace (Mirko Ruckels) and another with Steve Roach, and all but one have favored the softer, less edgy side of electronic expression; the listener can expect the same with Nine Breaths. “The Unforeseen” opens the first set with waves of sound repeatedly washing up around the listener, full of powerful textures and immersive swells of color, while “Sunrise” follows it with an ongoing juxtaposition of contrasting overlapping chords. Others from the first set worthy of special note include the spacious and experimental “Tremble in Worship,” the majestic “Cathedral under Construction” with its angelic voices mixed with sonic artifacts (footsteps? field recordings?), and the set closer “Spiraling Thought” that opens like a boiling cauldron of energy with a repeating three note melody scale. By contrast, the second set is almost 70 minutes of “Horizon,” a floating ambient epic with numerous curious elements along its trajectory.

Filed under: New releases, 2026 releases

Related artist(s): The Adelaidean (Sean Williams)

More info
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nine-breaths
http://www.theadelaidean.com/text

 

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