Our Day 18 music for 31 Days of May Madness, attempting to post a New Zealand track every day of the month of May, is “Red Rainbow” by Paperghost:

PopLib’s introduction to Wellington sound artist Paperghost was the 2015 album “Signal Fingers”, which seemed to be a kind of dream-folk from the future, in which the dreams are monitored, recorded, mixed and played back on some kind of glitchy telepathic bio-ether-net.

“Red Rainbow” is from a just-released new Paperghost album called “Bright Eyed Sparrow”. It is also a rich and detailed alternative world, but this one constructed as much from natural sampled sounds as electronic keyboards. It’s also less odd, less fidgety, and more restful… in a restless and disorienting kind of way.

Though it doesn’t sound much like anything else, the album would fit within the “Fourth World: Possible Musics” series of ambient music from Brian Eno and Jon Hassel. Hassel described this “Fourth world” music aesthetic as “a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques.”

If you like music to expand your mind take a trip into the Fourth World of music with Paperghost. There’s a whole immersive back catalogue of Paperghost albums – an alternative reality well worth spending time in.