No Anchor

On No Anchor, Grant Hazard Outerbridge expands the scope of his ambient work, crafting three long-form drone pieces that together comprise nearly 80 minutes of music. The core sounds for the album were recorded in late 2019 while Outerbridge’s studio was under construction, then developed during the pandemic to incorporate complex signal processing and layers of his core instrument, the piano.

No Anchor fades into view with the gently rushing ‘Beneath a Soft Clearing,’ which evokes the feeling of traveling at speed while insulated from turbulence. The noise of the waking world encroaches more boldly in ‘Soon to Wake,’ as surface static begins to crackle and hum. Then, on the monumental 42-minute title track, all terrestrial points of focus begin to fade, as a deep soundscape stretches to the horizon. The resulting album feels like a waking dream, a tactile, shimmering, gorgeously immersive experience.