- In the RA film Real Scenes: Los Angeles, a bespectacled Matthew David McQueen, sitting in a rocking chair at home next to a rack of synthesizers, explains how life in the SoCal metropolis has helped him find himself, including his interest in new age music and "[the] sort of stuff that can lead to the inner healer." He goes on to say, "I don't want the weight, or the density, of actively engaged tonal ambient new age music to be like this serious, pretentious thing. I want it to be very lighthearted and warm and welcoming, and that's kind of a very important element that I'm honing in on with my label and my music right now." His label is Leaving Records and his music is Matthewdavid's Mindflight, the latest project from which is the first full-length release in the year-old Modern New Age series. Trust The Guide And Glide is, above all else, meditative music. But hidden within that thicket of texture and uplifting mood is the detailed work of a careful producer with a purpose.
McQueen has said the album takes inspiration from certain new age cultural touchstones, including Planetary Unfolding by Michael Sterns, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy and writings about Atlantis and Lemuria. It also features art by Gilbert Williams, a so-called "visionary artist" whose work is said to deal with "higher dimensional worlds and magical beings" and bears titles like "Contemplation" and "A Gift From The Higher Self." On the cover of Trust The Guide And Glide is Williams' "Secret Paradise," a 1978 painting featured in his Celestial Visitations book—you can imagine the colorful old thing sitting on a shelf or coffee table in the McQueen household, its pages earmarked for future use.
This music began as "experimental long form meditative sound sessions" on McQueen's monthly dublab radio show, Mindflight Meditations, which explains how it sounds more like a natural extension of him than his previous album, 2014's song-oriented In My World. Recorded over the course of four years, during which he got "very intimately involved" in the world of new age music, Trust The Guide And Glide layers weightless tonal elements—flute, digital pads, tape manipulations, guitar, field recordings—into melodic drifts that phase around resonant drones. It's all so patient and densely compressed to the point of feeling impenetrable, which makes every sound that much more elusive and mystical. Each piece seems to express contentment as much as wide-eyed curiosity, which they also encourage in the listener. It's just as easy to let "Unfolding Atlantis" wash over you as it is to trace every flickering high frequency and slow swell of low-end in its swaddling whorl. The 22-minute "The Vessel And The Voyage" works because it never stagnates or becomes cyclical, even as its bubbly synth sequences and unreal textures take turns holding you rapt in stasis.
For an album so concerned with an often misunderstood culture, Trust The Guide And Glide is remarkably clear and earnest. McQueen doesn't deal in the recognizable tropes of spiritual music as much as its intentions and possibilities. Something like "Elven Invitation" might be too rhythmically and melodically engaging for spa music, and the throb of "O'cean Dream" too substantial to be played softly in a yoga studio. But put them on a pair of headphones in a quiet, candle-lit room and they'll swiftly whisk your thoughts away.
Tracklist01. O'cean Dream
02. Unfolding Atlantis
03. Venusian Sunset
04. Love’s Harp
05. Elven Invitation
06. Dune Enigma
07. The Vessel And The Voyage