Raica: The Absence of Being
An album review of one of last year’s ambient gems — the 2025 return of Raica (aka Chloe Harris) after a decade
Raica
The Absence of Being
Quiet
Seattle’s Chloe Harris has been a stalwart of various electronica and DJ scenes, as well as running a record store too. But it’s been a decade between releases under her Raica moniker. Tragically, about five or six years ago she lost her young son to cancer — this record, her return, is dedicated to Cameron, and to Harris’ mother, who also left this world too early.
I‘m reminded of mid-70s (and early 80s) Tangerine Dream with these loping, looping synth washes; they both want to exist in ambient plains and have business being actual ‘songs’ all at once. This is background music you increase the volume on, maybe even wanting to have a boogie towards the end (Swirly Doot), certainly enjoying the deep contemplation (The Details) and the almost Shutov Assembly like intro (It’s In — hey, it’s ambient, you gotta name check Eno somewhere, somehow).
The Absence of Being wears its heart on its sleeve, and in its colours, the title gives us the announcement, and this backed up in some of the song names also (Sometimes Sad But Not, which is broadly cinematic in its sweep, and Not There Though, Dive, which feels the most Tangerine Dream-like to me, all Phaedra and Rubycon).
There’s such calm and contemplation in this music, sheets of sound that casually billow, that gorgeously waft, that welcome, and caress, and feel both formless and so perfectly shaped, each an exercise in sound excavation drilled out across six, seven and eight minute time-frames; each with a distinct flavour and ‘world’ but all rolling in like hills on one another and feeling part of a cohesive fold and flow.
I’ll mention Natasha Pirard’s recent album here and link back to my review —
— it’s not that they sound the same, but they’re both dealing with similar themes, and using instrumental music to address grief, trauma, and healing. These are mature, and beautiful ambient albums that have so much depth, and warmth, and feel so compassionately conceived, and sent out to the world. So just in that sense, I’ve seen them as sister-volumes. But of course I hear them as their own things entirely. The parallel with them is both are brilliant.
