Sade’s Garden by Marcy Firelife

For fans of Alice Does Computer Music, Geologist, Lydia Roberts, progressive soul music, and the self as a system of roots which soak up centuries of ancestors and surroundings, Sade’s Garden by Marcy Firelife crafts an emotionally captivating ambient sound with subtle influences from soul, gospel, and the R&B cannon, echoing the artist’s own cultural context and inviting us into the garden from which they grew. Gentle swells of shimmery synths, wailing vocals, strummed guitar, and assorted samples pull the compositions through these maximalist peaks, the subtle rise of which sweeps us along without us even realizing we’re being taken on a spiritual adventure. The overall lack of a rhythmic structure aids in this disorienting atmosphere, signifying a detachment from time as we experience a person’s entire background in one eternal instant. Within each of us, a similar unmoving cultural context lingers indefinitely, leaving us with decisions to make on where to take our external presentation given this gargantuan ambient ink blot onto which we’ve been imprinted.