Wesley Davis has been creating atmospheric electronic music as bios+a+ic for more than 20 years. He's pretty prolific, and while he keeps his compositions largely abstract, most of his sets focus on a particular theme. Davis lives in western North Carolina, and on this set he takes on Hurricane Helene and its aftermath.

bios+a+ic My Heart Is Floating Down the River (Symbolic Insight)

This is not a death dirge. Davis captures the wonder of the storm as well as the depth of the destruction. More than most of his albums, these songs get pretty specific. This is not a sonic representation of a natural disaster, however. It's one person's perspective on the end of the world as it was.

But again, despair is not the only theme. There is much more meditation and hope. Disasters can bring people together--though that's not exactly what happened in this case. But Davis doesn't focus on the political nonsense of the recovery efforts (which continues today). He focuses on the land and the people.

And, of course, loss. But in the last song, there are notes of hope. Of a possible future. I'm not reviewing this because of the subject matter, but rather for the subtlety of the approach. As more than one person has said, the "end of the world" would merely be the end of human existence. The world, and the life upon it, would continue. The same is true after devastation like that of Helene. This set strikes a breathtaking balance. Life does go on, and progress will ensue. Those lessons apply to far more things than just a hurricane. One just has to listen.

Jon Worley