Elizabeth Joan Kelly x Xqui – Starchild

Artist: Elizabeth Joan Kelly x Xqui
Title: Starchild
Keywords: experimental ambient classical collage electronic instrumental New Orleans

My neighbors have decorated their house from top to toe in a Christmas tinsel place, with lights strategically placed all over the outside to stoke up December’s electric bill and enough fake reindeers to confuse a bypassing Santa it really seems to be the home of a holiday season fanatic. No problem of course, but it’s what was standing high at the top of the house that made me link this release to the neighbor’s light show; a enormous star! Probably the star of Bethlehem, making me wonder that if going into this house with a little gift I would be greeted with a crib featuring a new mother, some farm animals, three kings and a star child chilling out in a bed of straw.

Unfortunately, even with the Christmas spirit running high, I do not want to knock on their door to see if the bright star mounted on top of this house’s roof is indeed the one to follow around with a gift under the arm. I’m dealing with enough anxiety and neighbor phobia to instead find a safer, more introvert way to visit a real life kind of star child on its own. One that is a release that doesn’t really seem to involve the sound of a crying baby, steers far away from Christmas decoration but instead gives us a fantasy encounter that feels far from the light show next door.

In fact this two track release starts with ‘starchild’ being a wondrous ambiance, something that made me think of flying into a Alice and wonderland kind of flight, one in which we float softly deeper into the middle of the den. Going down with a graceful way and go to the zone where all the magic happens. It’s as if we have exchanged our natural human body weight with the weight of a featherlight goose feather, one that is soft and light, warm and kind & fully open for suggestion to change direction with any sudden breeze of sparkle dust. The music will make us go down, deep down into the rabbits hole – but this journey down is one that comes across as safe and magical as it could be.

What follows is a collaboration between fantasy audio makers Xqui and Elizabeth Joan Kelly, who together seem to deliver the second mysterious step into the journey. Thanks to their production my mind started to flow weightless through mystique hallways that come to me across as a maze of tunnels and doors. Sometimes the music bursts through those doors, knocking them open to go deeper into this fairy kind of minimal surrealism & to be fair; get slightly lost in this place that seems to be the starting point of many more adventures. But as we are dealing here with a two track release, these adventurous and obvious wonders that could lay behind the closed doors in this phenomenal sounding tunnel complex are left unopened. Making me hope that these two artists would again team up one day & reveal more serene fantasy worlds to lose ourselves in. Maybe that would be a ideal prospect for the next year wish!
https://elizabethjoankelly.bandcamp.com/album/starchild
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