FIGURES OF DEVOTION - RHAPSODY IN TRAVEL (HURT COLLECTION, 2020)

I received this beautifully laid out package in the mail containing the cassette of Figures of Devotion 2020 album Rhapsody in Travel. Included with the cassette were several gorgeous photos of unmarked land and cityscapes. According to the scant info card it is noted that these songs were composed and recorded in Texas, Wisconsin, Utah and South Dakota. Dedicated on tape are abstract sounds that unspool like a hallucinogenic travelogue. Snippets of field recordings weave in and through heavily pawed synths, melancholy piano solos and distortion filled drones and eliding ambient passages. On its own the music of Rhapsody in Travel is transportive in that ether-reality sense of handling the world with oven mitts. Everything feels just a bit fuzzy and out of focused as if waking up too quickly from an afternoon nap. The packaging, however, the thoughtful curation of similarly fragmented realities captured on camera is one of those rare experiences that make you grateful that physical media exists and artists are taking the time to thoughtfully produce tactile object of great beauty.