The Colorado ambient musician Matthew Sage will release his new album Paradise Crick in May. The album is designed to blur the boundaries between the natural and fabricated worlds, a task accomplished in humorous fashion by the video for its new single. The slow-creeping “River Turns Woodley (For Frogman)” evolves from peaceful new-agey vibes into something more like post-rock, epic and electronic and crackling with energy. It was inspired by Sage’s unborn son, whose experience in the womb Sage compares to that of an amphibian:

I was imagining the utero experience as a sort of amphibious one. How strange that we spend our first nine months as creatures submerged in amniotic fluid, breathing through tubes. And at the same time, how the brain is developing and creating these deep core memories as underwater creatures. But the we shed that at birth to become land dwellers. Tadpoles turning into little smart apes. Also how weird that to meet our offspring before birth, we use ultrasound, radar, to see underwater. It’s all nature, and it’s all magic.

In the video, this thoughtful, emotional composition is accompanied by FaceTime calls between M. Sage and a literal frog person who can’t seem to take the hint that Sage needs to get on with his day. It made me laugh and it drew my attention to Sage’s wondrous tunes. Hear “River Turns Woodley (For Frogman)” and prior single “Crick Dynamo” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Bendin’ In”
02 “Map To Here”
03 “River Turns Woodley (For Frogman)”
04 “Fire Keplo”
05 “Crick Dynamo”
06 “Tilth Dusk Drains”
07 “Tilth Dawn Rustles”
08 “Mercy Lowlands”
09 “Paradise Pass”
10 “Stars Hanging Shallow”
11 “Backdrif”
12 “Crick Foam”
13 “Evenin’ Out”