Baile releases haunting ambient soundcore album ‘Patient History’

by: John Flynn Dec 7, 2017

Reed Kackley, better known as Baile, has released a new ambient album, Patient History. The album serves as an ambient backdrop for NYC-based dancer Natalie Johnson’s movement memoire of the same name. Johnson’s memoire is a solo interpretive dance act produced and enacted herself in which she creates a physical manifestation of Baile’s symphonic melodies. In Johnson’s words, ‘Patient History’ is “the estrangement and grief of a dancer lost to injury, the invisible experiences inflicting isolation born from common and chronic crumbling.”

Containing ten full length tracks, with some extending as long as eight minutes, Baile takes the listener on a sonic journey through heartbreak and loss, as his productions guide carefully as each integral component starts to construct a haunting reality. There’s something incredibly human about exploring life’s most ominous anomalies, and death is the ultimate question explored by Baile. “I’m always striving for a really open, clear mix where every nuance of each sound can be heard” he says.

“This evening-length work, my first evening production in five years, is not explicitly a dance show, but more of a multi-sensory one woman show” says Johnson about the debut of her movement memoire, “I want to invite an audience to talk about deeper and darker subjects, to laugh at me, certainly laugh with me, and hopefully allow space for reflection while taking witness of what can only be described as my intentions towards honesty and embodiment. Despite the alluding to despair, the show is not without comedy as even silly people experience chronic humanity.”

While Patient History is certainly not an easy album to digest, it is rather cleansing for those seeking such a cathartic experience.