What does a day in the life of a bear sound like? Resonant, varied and like Electronica.
Saloli, pronounced “slowly,” means “squirrel” in Cherokee. Mary Sutton from Portland, who hides behind this pseudonym, sets a day in the life of a bear in the Smoky Mountains to music on CANYON. At first that sounds like a funny, even somewhat silly idea, but the eight scenically titled tracks go so comprehensibly and – “Snake”! – simply touching that many concept albums have to duck under this paw. At the beginning, a waterfall pelts the protagonist’s fur, the masses of water echoing off the rock walls of the canyon.
At the latest after the fourth track, “Yona”, on which the naivety with which Sutton goes about his work finally sounds like better times and Studio Ghibli, one sticks with it. Despite the sometimes considerable length of the tracks, this is due to the fact that the repetitive, only marginally changed melodies have a convincing amusement about them – created and atmospherically transported with maximum density using a synthesizer and a delay pedal.