Album Review: Neighborhood Libraries' In Our Wake - Vast, Hauntingly Serene, and Deeply Human

Since the start of the year, I've started to (once again) experiment more with the genres we get to cover, especially on album level. This new layer of creative freedom sent me back to the early days of the website when the sheer amount of writers contributed to the colourful palette of sounds we wrote about. This write-up is certainly a new nuance in this month's selection and I'm happy to take you on a mindful cosmic journey through the world of Neighborhood Libraries and his brand-new record, In Our Wake.

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Neighborhood Libraries is the moniker of Canadian producer and film composer Taylor Swindells. A project he started at the beginning of COVID when his indie rock band The Tourist Company was forced to cancel touring plans. The Vancouver-based artist crafts immersive soundscapes at the intersection of drone, ambient, and neoclassical music. His work is textured with field recordings and cinematic sound design, a reflection of years spent scoring films and shaping atmospheres that linger long after the music ends. All of this bound together in this wonderful atmospheric world that healed the rather restless soul I've had lately.

I know it may sound strange, but my go-to gym album this year has been Jon Hopkins' RITUAL and what I adore about it are the moments of peace and quiet throughout the record. It is that exact feeling of calm and focus I felt the very first time I was listening to In Our Wake. Swindells cites artists like Ølafur Arnalds, Heliøs, and Nils Frahm as his inspirations, which makes perfect sense. "One thing that always bothered me about playing piano was the brightness of it," he explains. "I discovered this world where you can treat the piano and do all these different things to add so much character, which was really exciting."

Needless to say, In Our Wake is a cohesive experience and while you may cherry-pick a track and grant yourself a few moments of solitude and gratitude, you won't be able to detach your mind and body unless to embrace the full picture which these 10 tracks portray. "Phosphorescence" (track #3) starts as I slowly type and edit those lines and I feel this burst of emotions that makes me want to cry, but not because I'm sad or everything feels too much. As weird as it may sound I just feel rejuvenated and happy in the purest form possible, my mind just shredded from all the stupid daily things that seem to bother me. Isn't that the clearest testament to the power of music and the magnitude of what Taylor Swindells has created?

But let me re-wind a bit and talk a bit more on how this record came to be. “I had some extra time before my next movie started, so I wanted to make something more for my own headspace and myself,” he says. "I'd gotten some new pieces of gear that I wanted to get into the studio and experiment with, in the hopes of working with some new textures.” Drawing on his years of experience in film scoring, Taylor worked on the album while vintage documentaries flickered in the background of his studio, letting the images guide him through a month-long journey of sound and inspiration. I feel that these documentaries' subliminal presence in the background could be one of the main reasons why this album feels so special. I am fully aware many people might approach ambient and drone music with the mindset of being "background-y", but that's certainly not the case. The depth and precision of every intricate sound on this album is impeccable.

Album's title, In Our Wake, is a reference to an occurring theme that keeps Taylor up at night. "What's left behind, and what do we leave in our wake?" he reflects while dwelling on the record’s underlying themes. "How we interact with our environment really weighs on my mind a lot. I wanted this music to feel like it was left behind from a song a long time ago. As glaciers recede, they leave these other ecosystems behind, and I wanted this music to feel like the echoes of a piece that’s already happened."

The music of Neighborhood Libraries is beyond the everyday of this world and like I nudged at the start of this, feels like space itself. Vast, infinite and hauntingly serene, just like opener "I Chose an Astronaut", which was inspired by a '70s documentary on outer space. I think the song also weaves in a special memory, one he shares with his daughter, who once told him she wants to be an astronaut.

One song particularly resonated with me and that's "The Wind Searches for a Weakness". Those pulsating synths feel like the soundtrack of a wave in Nazaré, Portugal. Scary, but beautiful. In general, every single time I listened to the album, I found myself reflecting on whatever's in my mind at time. Sort of a blank canvas where thoughts emerge.

For Swindle, in particular, that's the fears every young parent faces and figuring out how we all fit in this world. For you? Who knows, give it a try. You won't regret it.