James Forest Joins Up With Gregg Silver For A Beautiful Record

A beautifully lush and robust EP release from James Forest delivers such unique layers of textures and atmospheres that you end up falling right into the entire soundscape and it's so easy to get engulfed by it all that before you know it, the record has you.
The Silver Forest EP is a wonderful mixture of elements that bring together contexts of jazz, electronic, atmospheric, vast tonalities, and plenty more you end up getting washed away with.
The record spans five tracks with some of them ranging over 13 minutes in length and each of them sheds a bit of a different mood and aesthetic. But, each of them takes you on a journey.
The record is built with different synths and keys, beats, and other digital instrumentation but also carries the main instrument which is the saxophone.
This is where things get really interesting because the saxophone adds a different texture to the record and also serves as a focal point a lot of the time as the electronic music builds that atmosphere for it.
This makes for such a beautiful combination and as you listen through the record, you get the sense that some of this is improvisational and puts you right there in the moment which also tells you that some of this, if not all of it, was recorded live on the floor to an extent. You can feel the energies flowing between the two.
By two I mean, of course, saxophonist Gregg Silver who joined forces with James to create this experimental, jazz-infused slightly psychedelic journey of a record.
Silver and Forest (now we know where the title of the record came from), seemingly have a natural ability and just fell together perfectly. Sometimes you find a musical partner that creates something unique.
I would say that this is a perfect case of exactly that.
Again, these tracks are layered with gorgeous textures in between the natural and digital instrumentation, it all gives you a bit of a sense of wonderment.
This is the kind of record that a lot of attention went into. There was definitely attention to certain details during its creation. Digitally you have tons of elements dubbed into the songs with everything from Samplers, Moogs, after effects, all kinds of amazing synths and keys, along with the soprano saxophone.
This also gives you the sense that the record was partly inspired by classic music of the 1970s when the Moog was really coming up and making waves.
If you're not familiar with Moogs then you should take a minute to check them out because they played an essential part in loads of music especially classic rock of the 1970s and early 80s.
Featured in tons of different styles of electronic music, Moogs are one of my personal favorites to have fun and play around with.
Here, the Moog is used along with a soiree of these electronic instruments that help build the aesthetic of the record.
This is an album that you listen to from beginning to end. There is just no other way to do it. You put on headphones, and you sit back. Soak this thing in for what it is. It's about 40 minutes long and more than worth your time.
This is an escape. It will put you in a different world for a chunk of time and I consider that a gift.
I thoroughly enjoyed floating and drifting through these songs. Listening to these subtle waves of intensities come and go. The way the tracks flow is outstanding.
A lot of these tracks have ways of swimming around in the air that surrounds you and causing memories of your own to pop into your head at random.
That's the thing with a record like this. It sets a mood. It puts you in a certain place but lets your brain run on and go wherever it may.
It's kind of a beautiful thing. The experience will be different for each person.
For example, certain tracks like "Purple Mountain Majesty" immediately ported me back to being a kid growing up in New York.
This kind of connectivity is not something you get all the time so when it comes along it's quite rejuvenating.
So, I'll say it again; pop on some headphones and listen to this full release because it will give you a wonderful experience.
Dive into this and see how it affects you because I'm sure it will.
