Album Review: Porcelain Raft’s “Microclimate” Is Like A Massage For Your Soul
Whenever you get a massage there is a weirdly glorious moment, when the person massaging you finds your “stress point” or rather the tissue cluster that grows tense and tight when you, emotionally, feel stressed. As the person rubs down this “stress point”, both pain and euphoria strike you because as the tension leaves, relief enters. Yet, they seem to go and come at the same time, to which Porcelain Raft’s Microclimate is a musical analysis of this odd paradox: how can anxiety and alleviation be felt, all at once.
I like to think that Microclimate is not just about the temperatures of environment but also that of human nature. In many ways, tension and joy are the “temperatures” of the human spirit, and how they range in degrees can be felt in the atmosphere. Although Porcelain Raft, i.e. Mauro Remiddi aimed to do an album that was earthly in its markings of Mother Nature, he, inadvertently, has also marked human nature. He has shown that when humanity is intense, so is the earth. Thus, he reveals a symbiotic relationship that is often ignored because it hard to convey with depth and intrigue. Many environmentalists wish to show the earth as a home in need of care, which Porcelain Raft does through the lush lulling of his vocals. You can not deny the beauty of the world as a place when he sings with delicate ease songs like “Big Sur” and “The Poets Were Right”. Although Microclimate, like most scientists, warns of the death of Mother Nature, it also presents her as a wonder that should be missed because she is wonderful.
Lyrically and sonically, Microclimate feels like you are listening to someone paint the stunning earth before your very eyes. To Raft, the world is gentle. From the trees to the wind, it is filled with ethereal. pastel hues that only get dark, when we mistreat the earth. It in this point that Porcelain Raft drives his biggest, most fascinating edge over the album’s theme as a lover of nature defending his love. By making the earth’s mistreatment both a result and reflection of how humanity mistreats itself, Microclimate adds a new, impactful layer to how we discuss environmentalism. For him, it is not that we are mistreating our home, it is that we are mistreating ourselves. Hence, why do we, humanity, think of ourselves so lowly that we would want to live in a world that is dying? As the earth grows in natural disasters, Microclimate makes you feel like you are not cleaning your home because you have given up on cleaning yourself, which makes sense. Yet, for all its depth, it is the simplicity of the instrumentals that makes the album feel so vast.
This album sounds gorgeous. Every synth, instrument, rhythm, and vocal meets to make people believe that they are receiving the earth again. Suddenly, nature is not about taking care humanity, but about humanity taking care of her. Microclimate shows you she is worth the care, and, like a massage, helps you receive the pain of how you have hurt through the relief of knowing you can heal her. To Buy Microclimate on February 3 Click Here.
