Parker Tichko - Music For Ferns (2024)

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Track list:
1. Sporophytes in Spring
2. The First Rain
3. Gametophyte Green
4. Fiddleheads Unfurling
5. Yellowing Fronds
6. Wilting in the Wind

all songs written, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered by Parker Tichko
album artwork by Amanda Dolan
videography of ferns in New England by Brant Tichko
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Inspired by the flora-themed works of 20th-century electronic music (e.g., Mort Garson, Roedelius) and modern environmental music (e.g., Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Green-House, and Patricia Wolf), Music For Ferns is an instrumental cycle of ambient-minimalistic synthesizer music dedicated to the ontogenetic life-cycle of the fern. Featuring soft, warm, organic, and, at times, shimmering tones created with a variety of vintage analog synthesizers, the album’s six instrumental movements explore the developmental stages of the fern under various ecological conditions across the four seasons of the Gregorian calendar. Beginning with Sporophytes in Spring, Music For Ferns’s early movements, much like the incipient structure of the fern plant, exhibit little musical development, instead, progressing via repeating, ostinato synthesizer patterns that foreshadow the characteristic circular, fractal-like structures of the fern that emerge during the plant’s sporophyte stage. As the fern continues to develop, so, too, does the harmonic structure of the movements in Music For Ferns: Mid-way through the instrumental cycle, in Gametophyte Green, melodies provided by a mellotron and analog synthesizers imply harmony in a major key, but the movement never quite breaks away from the melodic grounding of an underlying, sequenced, ostinato bassline. It isn’t until the final movement, Wilting in the Wind, which ends with a triumphant, albeit somber, harmonic cadence–one that marks the conclusion of the fern’s life-cycle–that the harmony of Music For Ferns matures into a cohesive, cadential progression.

While Music For Ferns is clearly more ambient and minimalist (e.g., see Fiddleheads Unfurling) than Mort Garson’s 1976 cult-classic Plantasia, there are, nevertheless, clear references to Garson’s work in Music For Ferns: For instance, Yellowing Fronds, the most melodically centered movement in the instrumental cycle, is reminiscent of 20th-century synthesizer music largely created in the neoclassical style with monophonic analog synthesizers. Other references can be heard in the timbres of specific synthesizer lines throughout the cycle: for example, while The First Rain is a largely meditative, minimalist movement featuring sound recordings of trickling rain water, brief melodic riffs, played on an original 1970s minimoog synthesizer, occur throughout the piece–perhaps, a subtle homage to the prominent use of the moog modular synthesizer in Garson’s music. In a similar fashion, the minimoog returns in Gametophyte Green, for one phrase only, to recapitulate the main melodic theme, originally played by the mellotron. In addition to the warm, earthy tones of analog synthesizers, Music For Ferns features ecological recordings that are juxtaposed over analog synthesizers throughout the instrumental cycle. As the movements progress, natural bird song, running water, and the sounds of crunching leaves provide sonic cues to the changing of the four Gregorian seasons and their ecological soundscapes.

Listeners--both plants and people--can enjoy each movement of Music For Ferns individually or in its intended format: as a 14-minute, through-composed work, representing the continuous, dynamical nature of the fern’s ontogeny with the “Four Seasons Mix”.

released September 27, 2024