Bålsam — Soñador

Greeted by birds and warmly filtered loops of voice, the album immediately establishes a lush, euphoric soundscape. As the opening titular piece "Soñador" progresses, deep sub-bass sines swell in volume, indicating this is likely an album of electronic dub or downtempo with its implied chord progression.

This turns out to be true, but the drums are fairly subdued or only implied, the music primarily constructed out of melodic loops. In this way it is similar to the style of albums like Biosphere's "Substrata". Like 'folktronica' artists of the early 00's like The Books or Four Tet, this album uses a dense pastiche of organic sound sources, arranged electronically, from field recordings to acoustic guitars, for an intimate, domestic feeling, an expressively human form of electronic composition.

The synth tones found on the album are luminous, and the album glows as if imbued with sunshine. Smoothly percolating grids of resonant sines on tracks such as the ambient splendor "Glimpses" establish the saturated pastel palette of the album. Each crevice of the sound seems to ooze an energy of safety and reassurance. Drone pieces like "Effigy" are perhaps the artist's greatest strength, with a sound that flickers like dappled sunlight through trees, and shimmers like the surface of water, similar to the work of an artist like Alio Die.

The positive energy of the music changes to a personal kind of cathartic melancholy with the song "Madre", which contains an emotional recording of a person (presumably the artist's mother), discussing their feelings about family life and providing encouraging words.

This album is filled with a wonderful organic ambient sound, overflowing with vintage tape texture, creative sound design and an uncommonly soothing zen effect. Unlike many of the long-form ambient recordings that typically provide the types of tones heard on this album, this one is friendly to shorter attention spans, with a great density of ideas within its fifty four minutes.