Drum & Lace moves to the Mesh imprint for Terra, a fine home for the artist as Mesh releases are known for having more than music on their mind. Over the past few years, the artist has gravitated to the realms of folklore and nature, with releases such as Further, Natura, Frost, ONDA and tempora touching on themes that range from The Birth of Venus to birdsong, the elements to the seasons. Terra continues in this vein, each of its five tracks inspired by a different aspect of nature. At the same time, the artist has begun to sing in Italian, her native language, putting her in touch with her roots while mirroring a desire to return to the planet’s roots and the source of all life.
The EP is vibrant and life-affirming, although it is impossible to escape the threat of climate crisis lurking at the edges. “Lichen” is a gorgeous beginning, the slow-growing plant mirrored by the expansion of the track, which adds elements along the way: first percussion, then layers of synth, then Sofia’s wordless voice, looming over it all like a protective spirit. An extra surge of energy enters in the center with harder, faster drums that advance and recede in cyclical fashion. This sets the stage for “Rings,” which implies seasons of growth and the evidence it leaves behind: in trees concentric, in humans of indiscriminate shape.
“La Riva” (“The Shore”) is also open to interpretation: a liminal place between land and sea, the shore is a place of transformation, where adaptable creatures live and thrive. Once upon a time, there were no shores, only a vast sea; the field recordings that surface in the center give way to a pulse like a heartbeat, a swift evolution, creatures crawling from ocean to land. “Terra (Right Here Do This”) brings the human experience front and center, reflecting, as the artist writes, “the earth that has shaped me, and the nature I’ve lived.” The insertion of a child’s voice speaking the words of the title speak simultaneously to the illusion that humanity is in control and the truth that it is simply another child of a far more powerful planet.
The wordless “Fiamma” (“Flame”) is also open to opposing interpretations: on the one hand, one thinks of Robert Frost (“Some say the world will end in fire …”), while on the other it implies the flame humanity bears, a light that is shared, a torch that is passed. The choral timbre suggests the latter, although the piece also sounds like a requiem. The uncertainty lends weight to the brief EP, prompting speculation on humanity’s responsibility to the world that birthed and sustained it. To get in touch with one’s roots is to do more than discover an ancestral chain; it is also to trace the history of the elements in the human body back to their natural origins. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 