Debut album by Romanian artist Diana Voinea, who describes her work as “field recording ambient.” The music is composed largely of her layered and manipulated field recordings, most of which she made in her seaside hometown of Constanta as “a way of keeping alive all the sounds specific to my hometown that are slowly disappearing.” This is dense and richly textured, naturalistic yet almost hallucinatory, as though you’re getting a sense-overloaded tour of a place you’ve likely never seen. Engrossing as music, and a profoundly generative way to observe a beloved place. There should be a whole genre of music like this. The last three tracks are remixes. Favorites: 1, 2, 7, 11. No FCCs.

1. *(8:56)—Bird sounds, ghostly background tones, an almost inaudible beat, faded opera singing. Gets cavernous. Mild glitchy vibe. Noisy ending.
2. *(6:39)—Reverberant, beautiful water sounds. Wind through trees. Snippets of distant conversation. Dissonant tone pulses.
3. (10:24)—Soft tapping. Dust clinking on metal. A sound like a shopping cart being dragged through a giant tunnel. Soft squeaks and whistles. Thick atmosphere.
4. (5:29)—Lots and lots of bird sounds.
5. (6:05)—Sirens, wind, something (leaves?) being crumpled, soft machine noises. Walking across sand.
6. (3:56)—Tv noise. Rhythmic automotive clanking. Kind of loud and noisy. Kids shouting, dogs barking. Accordion, bass guitar, woodwind.
7. *(8:25)—Tremoloed wind, water, soft synths. Trippy. Like being in an underwater tunnel. Deep, ominous closing synths.
8. (10:48)—Dark, swirling Blade Runner synth noise. Fractured vocal loops. Glitchy, way out, intense.
9. (6:54)—Remix of track 1. A beginning like a skipping record, then droplet-like synth tones.
10. (4:41)—Loops of hiccuping tape, disjointed remixing of fragments from track 3. The remixer, Nate Scheible, is responsible for “Fairfax,” my favorite album of 2017.
11. *(5:23)—Rework of track 7. Wind, dark ambiance, like crawling into a cave.