Wabi-Sabi Tapes / France / 2025 / CS
"Imagine an undefined web spun from innumerable holograms, each flickering in a polyphony of resonance. These holograms reflect one another through translucent membranes, sharing a common illumination source but claiming their distinct cymatics. Both tight and ethereal, autonomous yet interconnected, defined yet open to interpretation, and hidden in plain sight — the web behaves like an algorithmic field through which one might begin to sense the subtle depth of a space steeped in memory and sound.
Purpurna vresišta delves into the trauma imprinted on landscapes, examining this concept through extended listening techniques, field recordings, and soundscape compositions. The album observes and records abandoned industrial sites on the fringes of Barreiro, Portugal, along the Tagus River, as well as the microenvironments of the Great Lake on the island of Mljet, Croatia, and the tropical forests of Thailand.
The toxic, derelict post-industrial landscapes of Barreiro, scarred by years of metallurgy and production of chemicals, present a surreal sight. These areas, now barren and desolate, maintain an unexpected sensitivity and remain in open contact with the river. Over decades of neglect and decay, resilient microenvironments have emerged, hosting a diverse array of flora that gradually detoxify the land, one micromillimeter at a time.
Further south in the Adriatic, an island lake connected with the sea shelters unique and endangered coralligenous structures. Despite legal protections, these structures suffer from water traffic noise pollution, plastic waste from increased tourism, and the rising sea temperatures caused by uncontrolled industrial, medical, chemical, and communal waste.
On the other side of the world, Thailand's tropical forests have endured decades of similar impacts from mass tourism, and inadequate management of electronic, industrial, and toxic waste. The country is a major contributor, of up to 60% of plastic pollution in oceans. Thailand's 23 coastal provinces dump an estimated one million tonnes of garbage into the sea each year.
What do these soundscapes have to tell us? Do they speak of the profound resilience? By listening to these landscapes, would we begin to understand the depth of their struggle?"
Manja Ristić