Will spring ever come? With the kind of cold weather we’ve been getting, I would think it’s a valid question. We’ve just been through one of the Floridian winters in the past 60 years, for God’s sake. Well it is coming. In fact, I think it might finally be here. This makes The Seven Fields of Aphelion’s freshman release of Periphery on February 15th , 2010, under the Chicago based Graveface label so timely. The album is 12 tracks long and stands to the low timbre electronic side of experimental post-rock like God is an Astronaut or El Ten Eleven.

This album is good (I think?). It’s the kind of album that cultivates an atmosphere, but I’m hard pressed to identify what kind of an atmosphere it is. The initial track on the album “slow subtraction” is a musical palette cleanser. Keyboards rest over the barely audible background synth and set the mood for the rest of the album. Introducing bells and guitar riffs throughout the following tracks, like “Grown” and “Wildflower Wood” Seven Fields builds a sound that comes off as... organic? Tracks like “Mountain Mary” and “Lake Fleet” seem inspired by classical composition with multiple keyboard tracks layered on top of another. Others, like “Sunburst Lake” and “Michigan Icarus” see the keyboard slide into the background to make way for horn-like effects and fuzzy midis.

The style of the album is difficult to place. It seems like it would be appropriate as the soundtrack for one of those stop motion videos on National Geographic of a mushroom growing over several months. You know, one of those videos that takes one picture from every day over a three month period, and then they’re pasted together as slides which give the effect of instantaneous growth of a mushroom or something? Yeah, well, that’s how I would describe this album. I apologize if that isn’t clear, but the album doesn’t ever make a clear statement about itself. It’s more of a gestalt thing. You should probably just listen to it.

Beyond being a musician who plays with Chicago’s Black Moth Super Rainbow, Seven Fields (which is apparently one person’s pseudonym) is also a photographer. Her Etsy account is filled with multiple exposure prints of forests of power lines and abandoned factories lit by sunsets. This, I think, is the best metaphor for Periphery. This album may not be for you. But, if you’re tired of winter, and you want to listen to music that will warm you like an 8:00 AM bus-ride over the MLK Bridge, a time when the morning sun twinkles through dew covered glass, then I seriously recommend this album.