“Various Lake Contents” is an anticipation track from the album “Deforestation” by Kael Smith’s Mute Forest (out November 13th on Lost Tribe Sound). Recorded and mixed at home in Denver, the album sprawls across nine sonorous and meticulously wrought tracks containing elements of minimal electronic, ambient and folk. Large cavernous beats, micro-ambient deconstruction and nylon guitar all swirl into a coherent palate left for Smith’s poignant, intimate words.
In a seemingly ceaseless acreage near his childhood home in the Rockies of Colorado, Kael Smith (Mombi, Khale) takes a deep breath and listens critically to the forest. It is not the same sound he remembers as a youth, when he’d disappear for hours deep into these woods. No, the sound he hears today is unfamiliar and vapid. Muted, really.