Nite Lite

Music is most relevant when it literally swells with meaning, but it is downright engaging when the meaning within the music is not immediate, when it requires a bit of sleuthing: a probing set of ears and an open mind. Such is the output of Nite Lite, the Portland, OR-based duo of Phil and Myste French, former curators of one of the American cassette underground's most revered labels: Stunned Records. Their aim, as the label puts it, is to "keep the world alive by sculpting shapes out of its sounds," and that's exactly what they've accomplished through the clever use of field recordings. As Megrez revolves on the turntable, the listener is immersed in a series of vivaria indoor environments with natural conditions — in which the lowing of cows, the calling of fowl and the life aquatic are given equal measure to more "musical" sonic artefacts. Such an elegant and delicate clatter dissolves solipsism, opening up our whole world to reinterpretation.