Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Announces New Album Thoughts On The Future

5 days ago7 min read3 comments

In a move that underscores her prolific and ceaselessly creative spirit, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has announced a new album, 'Thoughts On The Future,' set for a December release. This news arrives a mere handful of months after the vibrant, life-affirming cascade of her previous record, 'GUSH,' a project that felt like a full-body immersion into a digital coral reef.For those of us who collect her works on vinyl, tracing the evolution from her early Buchla explorations to the lush, orchestral-pop inflections of later albums, this pace is both thrilling and characteristic. Smith operates in a realm where the distinction between composer and sonic gardener blurs; her music isn't merely released, it's cultivated and shared in seasons, each offering a distinct emotional and textural climate.The forthcoming album, comprising three lengthy instrumentals, promises a more contemplative, perhaps even aqueous, direction. The lead single, 'I Miss The Way You Swim,' immediately conjures a sense of fluid, graceful motion—a hallmark of Smith's signature use of the Buchla synthesizer to create organic, breathing tonalities that feel less like sequenced notes and more like the pulsing of a strange, beautiful internal organ.It’s a piece that doesn't just ask for passive listening but for a kind of auditory floating, a submission to its undulating currents. This trajectory into extended, immersive compositions isn't entirely new for Smith; one can hear its precursors in the side-long explorations on projects like 'Tides' or the collaborative work with the Stargaze ensemble, but here it feels deliberately focused, a triptych meant for deep, uninterrupted engagement.In an era of streaming where attention is fragmented into thirty-second clips, Smith’s decision to offer three substantial pieces feels like a quiet, profound act of resistance, an invitation to disconnect and dwell. The title, 'Thoughts On The Future,' is provocatively ambiguous.Is it a hopeful, utopian gaze forward, akin to the radiant optimism in the works of Suzanne Ciani or Laurie Spiegel? Or is it a more complex, melancholic meditation, tinged with the anxiety of our current moment, a future remembered before it arrives? The elegiac tone of 'I Miss The Way You Swim' suggests the latter, a poignant longing for a mode of being—fluid, free, unencumbered—that feels increasingly distant. Contextually, Smith exists in a rich lineage of West Coast synthesis and minimalist composition, but she consistently transcends mere homage.Her work dialogues with contemporaries like Caterina Barbieri in its precise melodic patterning, yet remains utterly singular in its warm, almost tactile humanity. Where others explore cold, cosmic vastness, Smith finds the intimate biology within the machine.

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