Anthéne

Perennials is the latest full-length from Toronto-based anthéne (aka Brad Deschamps), who builds transportive, beautifully detailed sonic worlds using only a guitar, sampler, and modest cache of pedals. Here, his refined treatments, manipulations, and experimentations blend seamlessly with an innate sense of harmonic layering to create an impression of seasonal cycles and their relationship to the human experience at scale. “winter chords” opens with slow serenity and a faint suggestion of hibernation heartbeats, as overlapping arcs of guitar drift across a grey-blue sky and bare branches scrape at the windowpanes, perfectly establishing the dynamic delicacy of what follows. Fittingly, the careful mastering work of James Bernard – with whom Deschamps previously collaborated on the Soft Octaves LP (PITP, 2023) – highlights the unique personality of every low-end hum, heavenly reverberation, and finespun flourish across the set.

On “shades of night”, a gentle tremolo guides a set of alternating chords as shivers of starlit melody build with mellow momentum, resulting in a spell of ecstatic upward gazing. “drifts and debris” demonstrates one of many ways in which Deschamps is able to make an orchestra of moods with his Jazzmaster through an alluring combination of effects, compositional skill, and sound design, evoking a rolling sea as it blends into a darkening sky. About his inspirations for perennials, he notes,”I was preoccupied with how we face major challenges but always find a way back to center, and the ways our emotional rhythms mirror the return of nature after every harsh freeze, you know, all these things that have their own organic pace and require a certain kind of surrender.” During his studio sessions, the timeless writings of Walt Whitman and production styles of Sparklehorse and Califone were also key to the mindset that brought these pieces to life.

The meadows and moraines of “imaginary lines” develop from a kinetic combination of powerful harmonies and feather-light field recordings, while the incandescent loops of “spread of inventions” rise and fall as if on a carousel, blurring a little more with each pass. The long-form construction of title track, “perennials”, mimics the generative emergence of life after winter, as the ground gives way to lush verdancy and new resolve materializes in the fresh air. The album concludes with “try to be more realistic”, on which Deschamps takes a yawning, bowed guitar recording by kranky veteran Benoit Pioulard and graces its contemplative environment with glittering bells and gorgeous layers of treated and re-sampled guitar, yielding a hypnotic shimmer that fades into soft-edged stasis. As a slight chill pervades these final moments, the impulse to flip back to side A and begin the journey again feels as natural as the seasons that inspired the suite.

In addition to being the founder and curator of Polar Seas Recordings and Floralia Editions, Deschamps has released extensively with luminary labels including Home Normal, Quiet Details, and Constellation Tatsu, earning a reputation as one of the most accomplished and consistent producers of compelling ambient music working today. perennials builds on the ideas and environments of previous solo works like frailty (2025) while summoning its own unique universe of meditative, organic grace.