Slow Meadow - Upstream Dream (2021)

Immersing anew into Slow Meadow’s world of nostalgic and awe-struck ambience, Upstream Dream captivates with serene kaleidoscopic beauty. With a core of Upstream Dream composed around the time of 2019’s Happy Occident, this release will feel strangely familiar and new at once, with subliminal recognition piquing curiosity while ethereal soundscapes take shape and an enveloping warmth takes hold. Soft electronics, bearing otherworldly tones and, at times, a sense of playful mischief, subtly shift expectations and bring discovery and wonder at every turn.

As composer Matt Kidd’s first wholly new music since 2020’s By the Ash Tree, Upstream Dream bookends a period of creative output that introduced Kidd’s vision of calming and meditative ambient music. With a foundation of piano, string orchestration, and an ever-evolving electronic palette, Slow Meadow has traversed the borders of neoclassical and minimalist electronics, delivering a deeply personal and transportive experience that speaks directly to the ebbs and flows and mundanity and marvels of life. With sublime patience, understated elegance, and surreal atmosphere, Slow Meadow savors the present, remembers the past, and imagines what could be.