Albums of the Week - October 23, 2012

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Nature has been on my mind a lot these past few weeks. Blame it on a stressful year, but these days the idea of a solitary autumn morning amongst the trees sounds a thousand times better than another morning commute cross-city, and yet… and yet.

A few weeks back I had the chance to explore Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas–there were ravines and shattered chunks of rock bearing scars of ancient glacial trauma and water-worn grooves in the canyon wall that spoke to the slow but steady destructive power of time. It’s the simplest and most familiar of themes driven home by a billion tons of rock that you can mindlessly climb. A few hours scrabbling across boulders, leaping gaps, feeling the sun and wind and stone underfoot, occasionally leaning too far over the edge of a cliff and getting the faintest taste of death at the back of my throat—it went a long way.

In a similar vein, occasional contributor and friend of IO Stefan Raduta recently passed along a gorgeous, sprawling report of his time spent at the Stella Natura festival up in the Desolation Wilderness area of the Tahoe National Forest. Flipping through his pictures of bands and attendees gathered amongst trees and natural granite makes me immediately sad to have missed this opportunity, and instantly thrilled that something like this even exists. It’s well worth a look.

Not all of the releases this week strike me as music for reflection–but if the world is what we make of it, they’ll do just fine for my current purpose. This week, grab your iPod and head outside.