More evident and surely more significant than ever before, mankind's existence is quietly approaching the natural world's capacity for sustainable living conditions.  Limited natural resources are succumbing to the desperate needs of exponential population growth and greedy corporate profits.  In their minimal existence, the human race has managed to quickly pave the way for their own imminent extinction by slowly deteriorating the natural landscapes of this fine planet.  Of any tragedy imaginable, the planet Earth has been in the most sorrowful of all time, as the necessary evils of our existence constantly play tug-of-war with its depleting resources.  Artists throughout the ages have struggled to capture the natural beauty of the world around them through paintings, poetry, and music, while others quietly destroy it before their own eyes.  To this day, we have artists like Segue contributing their own feelings of loss with their surrounding natural world.  

The identity behind the clever moniker of Segue is Jordan Sauer, who displays his affectionate attitude towards the natural world with his mixture of field recordings and electronically produced ambient drone.  Nature versus man-made.  Peaceful versus destructive. 

With his latest release, Into the Fall, Jordan feeds my unabated appetite to understand more about the beauty of sound.  Having released several electronic works in file format through different Canadian and German netlabels for nearly three years, Jordan's latest collection of sound is being put out by the relatively new Japanese label Slow Flow Rec, and is his first physical medium release on the CD-R format.  Judging from SFR's modest collection of releases, it seems this new material fits in nicely with others from Celer, Ryonkt, and Elian.

As stated before, Jordan's use of field recordings is noticeable from the get-go.  "Transpire" introduces us to gentle, calm splashes of water; their pleasant sounds quickly overcome by a subtle, yet defining electronic tone accompanied by a relentless drone, introducing the listener to Jordan's take on the ceaseless battle between mankind and nature.  The next song, "Drift" continues this theme as we hear birds chirping peacefully in the background while an almost overlooked sound that takes the form of chopping wood can be distinguished through the lifeless drone.  As it closes, those same birds have mysteriously gone missing, while the chopping sounds draw out their last swing.  These field recordings are an important feature throughout Into the Fall, which allow Jordan to passionately display the constant collisions of the coexistence between humans and mother Earth. 

While these two tracks and others do well to hold up this perception of the music, there is a lack of uniformity throughout the album as a whole.  With ambient releases, my preferred album is one that has a storyline and starts and finishes with a recurring theme.  Other tracks fall short of this on Into the Fall.  With a name like Segue, I would expect the album to flow without pause, forming a concise feel of sound through and through.  While there are many transitions, other parts of the album are missing that link that would tie this album together beautifully. 

Nonetheless, "Indian Summer" is definitely a worthy standout track on its own.  It could easily be something drone wizard Tim Hecker left off An Imaginary Country.  Segue is on his way to crafting some really wonderful ambient releases and I think everyone should be on the lookout for what this quiet, young artist has for us in the future.  

-Zach Corsa