Matthew Cardinal
Asterisms
Arts & Crafts
Edmonton, AB
RIYL: Boards of Canada; Aphex Twin; slow shutter speed on evening light photography

Matthew Cardinal’s recent diversion from his work with nêhiyawak and Slow Girl Walking has resulted in the profound effort that is Asterisms. His debut solo full-length album, and a self-described audio journal, Asterisms is a warm, hopeful soundtrack for blazing into the 1970s at rocket speed, or walking through a flower field at sunrise. 

Drawing us into his alter-world of ambient electronic music, Cardinal’s Asterisms is an excellent example of contemplative, retro-futurism that possesses an inherent grace. Several tracks were the result of real-time improvisations, recorded as they were played for the first time. All this, and still managing to bend and shift in all the right places. Asterisms allows the listener to bear sonic witness to Cardinal’s candid, organic metamorphosis as an artist, as he drifts galaxies away from his other projects, where he is completely at home.

— Lenore Maier