Red Sargasso

Prospector Sound is the alter-ego of Manchester musician Richard Talbot, who is most well known as a founding member of Marconi Union. Talbot (under various pseudonyms) has been making ambient music since the late 1980s when the genre was still in its infancy and was a part of the cassette scene that flourished around that time.

Over the past thirty-five years, rather than vacillating between different musical poles, Talbot has chosen to constantly refine and adjust his core concept of sonically capturing real or imaginary spaces. He notes: "Whenever I make music, I'm making imaginary places for myself." The music largely eschews rhythm and places a heavy emphasis on evocative atmospherics - these can be warm, dark or mysterious or sometimes all of these things at the same time.

One consistent feature of Prospector Sound music is its organic quality often emphasized by the employment of processed found sound and field recordings. Red Sargasso is comprised of 11 mysterious atmospheric tracks recorded over a period of several years. They are both warm and simultaneously eerie. Lush synth parts co-exist with distant unsettling bumps and clanks derived from treated field recordings.

This juxtaposition steers the Red Sargasso away from New Age blandness and creates an overall effect of organic depth and richness.