Another Plane Beyond Empiricism is a gentle offering to past, present, and future selves; a yearning for groundedness, reconciliation, and peace of mind. Napa-based artist Radagast the Brown (aka Ezekiel James Hampton) imparts a complex mythos through this work: Foreign memories seep through consciousness from the interdimensional, rife with a nostalgia not necessarily your own.
The album is sensitively infused with 20th-century classical music motifs and recontextualized sacred choral textures as well as other experimental renderings of the human voice. Consequently, there is no one genre that can describe this work; just the comfort that comes from indulging the melancholic ache of human experience.
On first glance, the intriguing track titles possess their own luring power: “Succumbing to Forlorn Fantasies” and “A Single Stitch from the Knitting God” invite a curious and open mind, yet one that is unsure of what or whose dream it’ll wake up from once the piece is finished. These are tracks to savor intently so as not to forget them—like holding onto dreams that are about to dissolve, just before waking.
