Patricia Wolf - See-Through (2026 Repress) Vinyl LP

Following her debut album, I'll Look for You in Others (Past Inside the Present), Patricia Wolf joins Spain's Balmat label with See-Through, her second album. See-Through finds the Portland, Oregon musician and field recordist continuing to develop her signature style of ambient, balancing radiant soundscaping with a carefully expressive sensibility. But the album is also marked by an important difference. She wrote and recorded many of the album's songs quickly, in preparation for an August 2021 broadcast on the online radio platform 9128 Live. Excited for the opportunity to play live after more than a year of the pandemic, Wolf decided to write all new material for the event, working with a lean setup of Octatrack, Roland Synth Plus 10, Make Noise 0-Coast, and Novation Summit. She also picked up an acoustic guitar that her brother had loaned her. Though the tracks may linger on the heaviness of loss, Wolf says, "What I discovered is that a stronger archetype had grown inside me to steer my emotions and thoughts to a better place." "Wistfulness" and "Upward Swimming Fish" -- her first experiments with VST synthesizers -- balance the bittersweet embrace of melancholy with the freedom to choose happiness. "Pacific Coast Highway," the album's lone song with drums, might at first seem like an outlier. But it also signals Wolf's interest in finding a fusion between the introspection of ambient and the togetherness of beat-oriented music. "Experiencing loss and isolation is what drove me into gentler territories of sound," she says, "but I want to start making more beat-oriented music. After an extended period of loss and isolation, I'm ready to experience more joyous and social things." Listeners with keen ears might recognize the album's closing song, "Springtime in Croatia." This marks its first appearance on vinyl, and its spiritual home is undoubtedly here, at the close of See-Through. As the bookending answer to the opening "Woodland Encounter" -- another song in which field recordings play a crucial role -- it closes the circle of an album that is itself keyed to the steadily turning cycles of life.