Parallaxes

Field Recording / Longing — 2022—

Return State

Music for the long way home. Distance, absence, and the slow gravity of return.

Return State

Manifesto — On Return State

Return State began on a coastal road that the artist had not driven in eleven years.

The project is built from field recordings made in the act of returning: harbours at dawn, ferries cutting between islands, the cicada hours of inland villages, the moment a familiar door is unlocked after a long absence. Around these recordings, slow compositions accumulate — guitar, piano, a single tape loop — never illustrating the place, only sitting beside it.

Return State understands that you do not return to a place. You return to the difference between you. The project's grammar is longitudinal — what changed, what stayed, what was lost on the way, what was waiting.

It is the quietest passport in the Parallax House universe.

“We do not return to places. We return to the difference between us.”
Manifesto

Sonic DNA

Genre
Ambient / field recording / slow guitar
Tempo
40–70 BPM. The pace of walking with luggage.
Atmosphere
Salt air, dust, late ferries, terracotta cooling.
Emotional Territory
The quiet ache of a door you can finally open again.
Listening Experience
Headphones on a night train. Eyes on the window.

Visual DNA

Palette
Bleached blue, terracotta, olive grey, white plaster.
Imagery
Harbours, ferries, empty kitchens, suitcases by the door.
Recurring Symbols
The ferry ticket, the unread postcard, the key on the windowsill.
References
Hiroshi Yoshimura, Gigi Masin, Chantal Akerman's News from Home.

Core Themes

  • longing
  • absence
  • distance
  • return
  • travel
  • memory
  • home

Audience Profile

Travellers, expatriates, slow-cinema viewers, anyone who has stood at a familiar gate and not quite recognised the lock. Fans of Grouper, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Mary Lattimore.

Discography

  • Coast Studies2022
  • Return State I2024

Press Description

Return State is a slow-listening project pairing Mediterranean field recordings with patient instrumental compositions. The work meditates on absence, distance and the act of returning — a sonic counterpart to the diary of someone coming home after a long time away.

Sister Identities

← Return to the Sonic Universe