"I recorded Open Space with in a single continuous take: my cello, an amp, and a distortion pedal. I was watching a film that was a static shot across a very large canyon, the light slowly shifting. I hope it offers the listener room to breathe and dream."-Lori Goldston

"There is something pulmonary in Lori Goldston's Open Space.

Produced in a single take of solo improvisation, Open Space was born from nothing but Goldston's cello, an amp and her distortion pedal. Her uninterrupted take was ultimately divided into ten tracks, with Goldston oxygenating her cello's resonant sound with titles such as "Morning Air," "Cloudless," "Wave From Heaven," "Rocky Lavender Cliffs" and "Open."

Experience the album from beginning to end and Open Space becomes an enveloping and meditative experience as it sonically chronicles the day's surrender to dusk. Goldston performs and records on the edge of a precipice, grinding her cello for 75 minutes as she bears witness to the drama of the setting sun. Thus, Goldston masterfully gives improvisational form to the Earth's rotation and the sublime, and we listen to the sunset turn into twilight, and twilight bleed into dusk, and dusk trickle into nightfall. Goldston explains, "I was watching a film that was a static shot across a very large canyon, the light slowly shifting. I hope it offers the listener room to breathe and dream." On all accounts, I find Goldston succeeded.

Open Space's invitation to breathe and dream is not only welcome, but urgent. Goldston's album arrives at a moment of global breathlessness, reminding us that there is calm healing in our breath and our collective planetary rhythm. In a world that can feel asphyxiating and adversarial, Goldston's cello reminds us that our breath and our dreams are communal. We are (or ought to be) connected to our planet, its daily rotation, and each other, possibly through the quiet ritual of watching the sun set. In experiencing Open Space, I find it less a mere recording and more of a shared exhalation with all of humanity.

Ending where it began, Open Space loops like breath or the Earth's orbit. The album concludes with its tenth track, the namesake "Open Space." Much like the sunset the album evokes, the track avoids ostentatious swelling and superfluous theatrics. Rather, the track concludes by simply dissipating like fading light. The final notes easily fold back into the album's first track, 'Morning Air," creating a seamless loop, becoming a sonic breath or light cycle with no clear beginning or end."-Evan Mitchell Schares