Toronto-based guitarist, Ayal Senior, developed an approach of listening, playing and collaborating deeply, unhurried and with space (hence the title ‘Yutori‘, which translates to ‘space’) after several creative sojourns to Japan. This philosophy of taking time and patience to create comes through the record’s immeansly laid-back and tranquil dream-folk vibes.
The album grew out of of a hushed winter morning session in the recording studio with Senior and several of his friends and collaborators leaning into this almost zen-like method of playing and being in tune with each other. The music’s vast openness and meditative qualities reflect the nature of these sessions, giving them the loose and communal feeling of tight improvised jams. This cooperative energy gives the record a sense of excitement, as it gives the impression the songs can go into any direction at any time. So your ear and attention are hooked right away, and they remain held til the needle reaches the deadwax on Side B.
Throughout the album, you are treated to unique variations of instrumental ambient folk that splinters into cosmic string music and astral Americana sounds, with spacey pedal steel, acoustic and fried electric guitar, pearly vibraphones and warm cello. Some tracks are like mini-baroque symphonies, while others lean more into the psychedelic, with dreamlike atmospheric passages and stream of consciousness-styled distorted soloing. The record has the ambiance of a Nick Drake LP, but paired with the looseness and cosmic expansiveness of a Matt Valentine or even a Popol Vuh album. This is especially true with the track that finishes out Side A, “Well of Seven.”
Yutori is as serene as a day spent floating around in a still pond, as pastoral as a walk through a freshly snow-covered forest and as illusory and wistful as a half-remembered daydream. If you need a bucolic and peaceful listen to soundtrack your autumn, then this is the album you should reach for. Click here to get your copy on vinyl or digital today.
-KH
