From the Garden Review: Sketching the World In Synths

Last year, Lil Terrestrial took us to space with The Story of Sun and Moon—an instrumental concept album built on a foundation of swirling synths and enveloping basslines. That LP set out the producer’s sound, where story and atmosphere reign supreme. Instead of travelling further into the cosmos, for his latest album, Terrestrial takes things back to earth.

FROM THE GARDEN is a tale of strength and perseverance. The album puts the listener in the mind of a seed, following its journey from being sown into the soil to sprouting and towering over the garden. The album’s narrative is sketched out by the titles of each song, but from the LP’s sound alone, you can hear how the music evolves.

A trickle of water welcomes the listener into the album the opener, quickly drowned out by a gorgeous swell of synths. The way the synths ripple over the drums, overlapping and intertwining, paints a vivid image of life being imbued in the seed—so much vibrance and detail packed into just over a minute. From here, we enter “plant your ROOTS!”, a rhythmic switch-up where a choir of ascending synths ring over some pounding percussion. The song offers a delicate balance of ambient and dance, the added rhythm providing momentum while the spacey haze of sounds maintains the sense of a life not fully realised.

“photoSYNTHESIZE!” shows off Terrestrial’s talents at their most dynamic. From the hypnotic drums which open the track to the explosive back and forth between piano and synthesiser, the song is a musical odyssey within itself, capturing all the radiance and colour of a plant blossoming in the summer sun. “FERTILIZE!” takes an even grander approach, where a single synth melody plays on loop, growing louder and more intense with every repetition, enveloped in layers of crashing cymbals and sizzling electric bass.

After the dramatic heights of the past few tracks, Terrestrial turns things down with “break through the SOIL!”, a peaceful interlude guided by a single meandering synth. The synth bends and twists with the percussion, snaking through the song with the same grace of rain droplets soaking into the earth. The interlude perfectly transitions into “soak in the SUN!/soak in the RAIN!”, where that lone synth blossoms, emboldened by reverb and shimmering percussion. Two synths work in contrast—the higher, ever-moving melody in the foreground against the deeper, darker foundation. The electric sounds mimic the constant flux of weather, sun and rain blending together as the plant rises above the soil.

The lively soundscape continues into the next few songs, with synths, drums, and bass illustrating the continuous growth of the plant. We finally get a change of pace on “weather the STORMS!”, which kicks off the final leg of the LP. The percussion is jagged and fierce, the synths overwhelming the ear. Terrestrial tweaks these familiar sounds into a sharper, more bombastic form, replicating the lash of violent gusts and the relentless batter of rainfall.

The “and ALWAYS!” interlude provides the listener one last chance to breathe before we enter “KEEP GROWING!”, the album’s closer. If “weather the STORMS!” was the climax, “KEEP GROWING!” is the denouement: an elegant outro which abandons the cinematic synths for a peaceful passage of piano.

Whereas The Story of Sun and Moon showed off Terrestrial’s ability to tell a story through sound, FROM THE GARDEN underlines his ability to create a world. Every synth, drum, and bassline feels purposeful. The instrumentation does not just describe a world, it is the world—a pulse of bass reflects a gust of wind, the meandering synths like the roots of a plant, diverging and spreading through the soil. With FROM THE GARDEN, Lil Terrestrial shows the listener the beauty of the natural world, creating a gorgeous journey of sounds from something as simple as a seed being planted.