Tender Membranes by Marja Ahti

Ambient music can be hard to approach if you don’t know how to listen to it. Abstract ambient in particular tends to evade interpretation, and the new album Tender Membranes from Marja Ahti requires especially close and patient listening. Exploring boundaries and separation, vulnerability and permeability, Tender Membranes casts off barriers between natural and synthetic sound. Low cicada hums emerge from buzzing fluorescent lights, and white noise mellows into flowing water. The album moves at its own pace between these liminal scenes, but avoids lingering long enough to make its home in them. Although none of these impressionistic vignettes are fully recognizable, they are wholly felt. Quiet harmonious tones induce a meditative headspace and high frequency static prickles the eardrums. Some sensations border on uncomfortable, yet in this context it is easy to accept the temporary discomfort as a part of the experience. Like any piece of abstract art, Tender Membranes slowly reveals itself through continued observance, expertly crafting a sonic sculpture that captures detail yet transcends shape.

- Kalen