Slovak label Mappa released the 51-track Synthetic Water Music compilation on September 10; Pitchfork’s first review arrived Monday. Start with the three-minute “A River Song”, an archival 1986 collaboration between Ursula K. Le Guin and composer Todd Barton.
Barton built instruments for the Kesh, the invented culture in Le Guin’s Always Coming Home, and the pair treated the recording as imaginary ethnomusicology: music documenting a people who never existed. That is a more compelling entry than attempting the entire three-hour compilation at once. The wider set moves among field recordings, ambient electronics and new commissions, gradually descending from fountains and droplets into marshes and a Lovecraftian submerged city. Official album and release date, Pitchfork review, September 14
The track is archival; the timely discovery is its placement in this new collection. If it lands, continue with Eva Sajanová’s 94-second “Oh, to Be a Fountain,” where voice and splashing water make the piece together.