“Stars in the Riptide” by Micah Pick and Analise Hausmann Charts the Life Cycle of a Wave From Formation to Crashing Into Shore in Ambient Drones

If you close your eyes and listen to Micah Pick’s and Analise Hausmann’s ambient piece “Stars in the Riptide” you can picture the heavens reflected off the waters as they rush into a rocky inlet, shimmering and endless fragments of glinting light. The song begins with a distant sound like a slow swelling wind, the waveform building in the ocean headed to shore then splashes and rushes as the tide rises. White noises as the crest of the waves ripple through the scintillating melody into a slow cascading frisson of tones that peaks and fades. In the extended version of the song we get to savor that heady anticipation early in the song as it evolves with seeming subtlety into a flood of activity but we hear the simulated sounds of sea birds on the edges of the soundscape much more distinctly and the resonating tones toward the end and apex of the song stretch out like an elongated vortex that breaks and dissolves abruptly into infinity. Listen to both versions of “Stars in the Riptide” on Spotify and follow Micah Pick on Bandcamp.