Exposé Online banner

Exposé Online

Not just outside the box, but denying the existence of boxes.
Covering music from the fringes since 1993.

Reviews

Tom Eaton — Until the Spring
(Bandcamp no#, 2025, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-09-19

Until the Spring Cover art

Rising out of darkness, this single track paints the colors of a gradient sky, much like the pre-dawn sunrise, one color fades across another, fades back to darkness and back to light again, mixed with deep rumblings in the lowest registers, without any sharp changes or cadences, everything moves slowly and majestically such that the spirit can ride these waves of sound into a new dimension where inner calm and peace can easily be found. The full title is Until the Spring: A One Hour Environment, and that pretty well describes what this embraces — a floating ambient piece that juxtaposes slow-evolving audio tones, textures and imagery into a journey of sorts, much like a trip through space to another world with no spaceship, only your mind. Eaton, an artist who has an extensive catalog of nearly six dozen titles, with many more similarly titled ‘one hour environments’ among those. Eaton creates these using synthesizers, electric guitars, Fender Rhodes, electric bass, and field recordings, everything heavily effected beyond any immediate recognition. In 2020 we reviewed his Elements: Audio Environments Parts 1-4, Air, Earth, Fire and Water, which was together a set of four explorative and immersive 70-minute pieces, although each of those was split into shorter, ten minute tracks, the overall effect on the listener is much the same as what we have here: this is classic floating ambient sound at its finest. I suppose that Until the Spring could be considered long-form as it stretches out to a full hour without any breaks or significant changes, a perfect companion for slumber, meditation, or simple background listening. On the surface, at first the sound seems silky smooth but as one gets further in, the subtle textures within the sound become apparent which is perhaps where those field recordings make their appearance, just under the surface forming irregular textural patterns, while the main stream of the sonic current continues forward. Overall, a potent experience, beginning to end.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Tom Eaton

More info
http://tomeaton1.bandcamp.com/album/until-the-spring-one-hour-environment

 

What's new

These are the most recent changes made to artists, releases, and articles.