The great people at Null Zone have a couple of exciting new releases that benefit for a very good cause. All proceeds from the pre-orders of Emptied Spaces by Rootless and 3rd Ear Incantations by Prana Crafter will go to the Garrie Vereen Memorial Emergency Relief Fund, which is organized and run by Nuçi’s Space in Athens, GA. The fund provides much-needed emergency support for musicians and artists in the Athens area affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In case you need more convincing to purchase these albums, let’s explore them a bit, shall we?

Rootless – Emptied Spaces

On Emptied Spaces, Rootless (A.K.A.Jeremy Hurewitz) takes you on a metaphysical journey that’ll leave you and your reality feeling forever changed.

With a fine mixture of spoken word, sound collage and cosmic ambience (while leaning hard into the realms of electro, jazz and psych-folk), Hurewitz and gang are tensely hypnotic here. Right from the start of the album, they grip the listener tightly with their mystifying soundscapes, and they don’t let go until the fade out of the final track.

The variety on Emptied Spaces is vast, yet each song fits thematically and tonally together perfectly. Tracks like the brooding acoustic dirge of “Lakeside” are just as cryptic and solemn as pieces like the eerie choir-filled collage that is”The End of a Song.” This is the kind of music that not only demands and grabs your attention, it makes the gears of your mind turn with great speed. You can’t help but try to decipher each track, which makes you want to listen to the album in its entirety over and over again. It’s like staring at the surreal Dali-esque cover art. The more you’re exposed to it, the more you want to unlock its secrets.

Touching on the existential, the mystical and everything in between through an impossibly diverse palette of sounds, this album might be Rootless at his best. Get this album here and don’t look back.

Prana Crafter – 3rd Ear Incantations

On 3rd Ear Incantations, Prana Crafter keeps us afloat on a river of flowing guitars and dreamy keyboards.

All-consuming tides of cosmic synth drones rush through the suite-length title track, which rise and ebb while improvised acoustic picking flutters in-and-out of the fray. If you’re looking for some music that’ll put you into a warmly zen state of mind, you’ve certainly found that here.

Meanwhile, on “Eyes Closed Inner Thunder,” which takes up the entirety of Side B, Sol’s entire spectrum of sound is on display. The track begins with the Washington state artist totally eviscerating all time and space with his heavily distorted electric, which eventually fades peacefully into an ever-metamorphosing passage of solo acoustic jamming. From here, the song progresses into a nebulous dreamscape of whirring interstellar keyboards and digital groans. Musically, this track is like Sol taking us from the chaos of our current world, leading us through the woody tranquility of his forested corner of the Pacific Northwest, and finally jettisoning us into the stars above.

If you need an album you can escape into, Prana Crafter’s got you covered.

Huge thanks to these enormously talented artists for lending such masterful releases to a very worthy cause. Don’t forget that in addition to purchasing these benefit recordings, you can also donate to the Garrie Vereen Memorial Emergency Relief Fund anytime. Click here for more information.

-KH