Ben Seretan & John Thayer Release 'Sunbeam Of No Illusion'
by Scott Osgood
Sunbeam Of No Illusion from Ben Seretan & John Thayer is out today digitally and on limited run LP.
Imperfections, signal noise, ground buzz, blips, plonks, glitches, and stutters accrete over clumsy, delicate loops of Fender Rhodes piano. Evocative of the sparkling white noise of water or the calm swell of a breeze, Sunbeam of No Illusion is a fine slice of hyperreality, a nuanced, BGM-inflected postmodern pastoral that's a heady blend of Yoshimura, Fennesz, Badalamenti, and Harold Budd.
The poet Richard Brautigan dreamed of a cybernetic forest, computers in the trees - here the wind is digital, trees rustling in binary. At peace with change and permeability, the metal resonance and electrical impulses of the Rhodes hum in the field of the studio as the Earth orbits the sun, an imperfect looping.
Sunbeam of No Illusion is Thayer and Seretan’s first official collaboration on record, though they’ve performed together in a wide variety of contexts since 2023. Drawing on the resplendent natural world of their shared home of upstate New York, the pair calls forth the specters of the valley, spinning up an offering that's frequently sublime and often a little sorrowful.
Watch "Watermelon Well" Visualizer
