Headphones on, please. With his new release, stones/still, Collin Thomas offers up a suite of five subtle works that pair field recordings with minimalist piano and droney washes. The field recordings, made in cemeteries, are for the most part static. They are what you’d hear if you stood in one spot for a while. But within the static are the quiet ripples of life–a plane whooshes overhead; birds sing; wind rustles. In the midst of it Thomas plays his piano a patient  note or two at a time, pulling time longer, making a moment wait to be done. Electronic warbles fill semi-empty spaces. Overall the sense is of being nowhere important, with nowhere important to be; you are here, and that’s enough. Stay while the moments form. Listen to what moves around you. stones/still is a superb ambient CD, embracing the compositional potential of silence and negative space in order to enhance the sounds that come to fill it.

Available at Collin Thomas’ web site.