Bodymelt in the Garden of Death by Austyn Wohlers

Given the way we use language to describe and categorize our emotions, we face countless situations in which our words fail us. Baltimore-based experimental artist Austyn Wohlers used one such experience to inform Bodymelt in the Garden of Death, a lush ambient environment painted in vibrant emotional swirls that devour, empower, and oppose each other with endless complexity. As the album unfolds, Wohlers delves into a critical moment in their relationship with their mother, and this moment’s garden setting lends the early portion of this album its warm, buzzing tones and insect field recordings. Wohlers’ mother had just recently survived a serious medical scare, and the embrace they shared in her garden served as a critical moment of emotional reassurance, represented here by the album’s steep drops into deep relief. However, death lurks in the garden’s every shadow, piercing the veil of comfortable innocence with its brash, noisy tones that temper all of the album’s joy with the immediate threat of catastrophic loss, compounding the weight of the embrace into an earth-shattering, life-altering display of love.