Spectrical - Litchfield

 Released: May 16

Litchfield, the latest album from Spectrical, borrows its name from the expansive Litchfield National Park in Northern Australia as well as its sounds. The album is comprised of a wide array of field recordings taken directly from time spent there and accompanied by a wide variety of synthetic and acoustic sounds to include analog synths and kalimbas. The result is an album that is equal parts natural and otherworldly sounding as the two differing approaches to textural creation, both synthetic and non-synthetic, meld into a dreamy and immersive series of soundscapes. 

With the synthetic textures present here, there’s a combination of approaches that create vastly different pieces. “Morning Light” opens with birds chirping and a slowly rising and falling synth that feels more or less seamless. But “Trees at Our Feet to the Horizon” features a synthetic texture that embraces those seams. The pads here give a sense of constant motion as they have a slight jarring sensation as each new chord comes in, actively cutting off the previous. It gives the entire track a pleasantly disjointed feeling, which is helped by the much more sparse field recordings than heard previously in the album. The vibe given off here is one of watching the sun slowly set as we hear less and less from nature as the daytime wildlife goes to sleep and the nocturnal wildlife wakes up slowly. 

By the end of the album, we are taken into full nighttime on “Ancient Starlight.” The field recordings here are far more subtle as we hear the faint song of crickets or cicadas and small tinges of the nighttime ambiance. Just that subtle quiet sound that signifies a slower and more mysterious time in the natural cycle. This subtle quietude is supported by the return of seamless and endlessly drifting ethereal pads, floating seemingly effortlessly in the midst of a twinkling black sky. It’s a rather fitting end for such a sublime and gentle album.