All too often a promis­ing young artist releases a bril­liant album and then dis­ap­pears for­ever, almost like the process of that first album was too much like cap­tur­ing light­ning in a bot­tle, to use a cliche. For the past cou­ple years, I had wor­ried that was going to hap­pen with Sanso-Xtro (Melissa Agate), whose Sen­ti­men­tal­ist for Type Records in 2005 is eas­ily one of their best releases and def­i­nitely one of my per­sonal favorites. Slightly influ­enced from the IDM and electro-acoustical com­mu­ni­ties that birthed Type, Sen­ti­men­tal­ist set itself apart from other releases by hav­ing an organic and tex­tural qual­ity brought on by a pick of loose per­cus­sion and dreamy synths that didn’t quite match up in the same way that most music did at the time. There was cer­tainly an ele­ment of jazz here, mixed with post-rock, mixed with folk, mixed with… every­thing. And for the past six years, that’s all there was, one per­fect album, in dan­ger of never being expanded upon. For­tu­nately, Agate has resur­faced this year with the won­der­ful Foun­tain Foun­tain Joy­ous Moun­tain album, pick­ing right up where she left off, but more mature and more beautiful.

To say that this release was highly antic­i­pated is prob­a­bly over­selling it for any­one but me. But we all have our secret plea­sures. In terms of albums I wished for, this prob­a­bly ranks right after a follow-up to Spi­der­land. Some­thing I never imag­ined would hap­pen, and even bet­ter, some­thing that is shock­ingly gor­geous and just as com­pelling as the pre­vi­ous out­put. Agate has not done a mas­sive turn­around from Sen­ti­men­tal­ist, but she has ironed out some of the awk­ward­ness in phras­ing and com­po­si­tion. Where the first album felt at times to be glo­ri­ous sketches that were per­haps slightly too tightly wound, Foun­tain Foun­tain Joy­ous Moun­tain feels as nat­ural and free-flowing as the inspir­ing locale it’s meant to evoke, namely the south­ern Barossa Val­ley of Aus­tralia (whence Agate is from and whence she returned in the inter­ven­ing years).

This is clearly an album made for vinyl or cas­sette, as it has two dis­tinct sides. The first, titled “Foun­tain Songs,” flows like clear moun­tain springs, with waves of synths and light per­cus­sion cre­at­ing a very sum­mery and effer­ves­cent musi­cal palette. In fact, one par­tic­u­lar walk around the park with lead song “Foun­tain Foun­tain” on was akin to a reli­gious expe­ri­ence for this non­be­liever. Not to be overly corny, but it made me real­ize that music is my reli­gion, and it hits me hard­est when there is a per­fect syn­ergy between the sounds and the envi­ron­ment I’m lis­ten­ing in, whether it is a club, my apart­ment, a back­yard party, or walk­ing around the city. Foun­tain Foun­tain Joy­ous Moun­tain is clearly meant for nature. Look at the song titles from the first half: “The Ori­gin of Birds,” with fly­ing, chirp­ing synths; “Wood Owl Wings A Rush, Rush,” for­est jazz con­structed from cas­cades of per­cus­sion and gui­tar; “Golden Hour,” with synths herald­ing a mag­i­cal sun­set; and dead cen­ter in the album, “Hello Night Crow,” ring­ing drones emu­lat­ing a quiet evening song, and keys awak­en­ing to after hours adventures.

The lengthy, quiet intro of “Light Come, Light Go, Ghost” pre­pares the lis­tener for a shift in tex­ture for sec­ond side “Moun­tain Songs,” pay­ing homage to the other half of Agate’s inspi­ra­tion. Gen­tle folk gui­tar is the most dis­tinc­tive sound in these four songs, pre­sent­ing a more angu­lar, sound than the smooth flow­ing first side. A high-pitch drone gives way to drums falling like rocks. “Good­night Thy­lacine” brings back some of the per­cus­sive cym­bal rushes from “Wood Owl Wings…” but they are embold­ened by snare rolls, thick kicks, and bass gui­tars. “Observes Shad­ows” and “Exit: Joy­ous Moun­tain” are sim­i­lar in pace, slow and mys­te­ri­ous, but dif­fer­ent in feel­ing. The first is dark and eerie, with long synth chords and stretched strings. The sec­ond, the album closer, is sad and hope­ful, with a wist­ful qual­ity, almost like a relax­ing song com­posed upon reach­ing the moun­tain­top, attempt­ing to exalt the immen­sity of the for­ma­tion with respect­ful tones.

As is prob­a­bly appar­ent, I’m incred­i­bly glad to have Sanso-Xtro back and encour­aged by the news that a follow-up will not be ter­ri­bly far behind this time. Cyclic Defrost has an essen­tial inter­view with Agate from Novem­ber and you can watch the video for “Hello Night Crow” below. Foun­tain Foun­tain Joy­ous Moun­tain is out on Dig­i­talis and is avail­able dig­i­tally, on CD, and on lim­ited yel­low vinyl.

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