Offthesky / Man Watching The Stars – Afar, Farewell

Limited CD edition of 150 comes packaged in a gatefold card…

Afar, Farewell is Offthesky joined by experimental violinist Brendan Paxton aka Man Watching the Stars for what is put simply one of the most breathtakingly moving albums we’ve ever released at Rural Colours. Unlike a lot of albums in the ambient genre this one is far from the usual background music with a variety of instrumentation and the disposition to engage in a more earthly, melodic, stucture. Afar Farewell supplies five gorgeous tracks of slowly evolving melody on a soft bed of processed guitar, molten strings and Offthesky’s deep and quirky signatures.

What is most special about “Afar, Farewell” is its ability to enact this kind of ‘being-there’, of being in Nature, even if this turns out to be a kind of mythologised and yearned-for Nature rather than anything concrete. If our stories about the natural environment help make it what it is, then this release contributes to that process with a reverence and absorbed attention, turning high rises into pine trees and mountains into monuments. – Fluid Radio