Hearts Filled With Seeds

If you're like me, your life was changed by a little multimedia CD-ROM released back at the top of the 90s by a small gang of very talented Spokane residents with a love for God, a well-nurtured sense of wonder, and an appreciation for exploration, discovery and revelation tempered by humility. That's a long-winded way to say Myst blew my socks off and inspired me to quit film school to start a company like Cyan.

But I'm here to talk about something different than a CD-ROM, though it also spins in your drive and at least one of the Cyan team is involved: my hero Robyn Miller, who in addition to imagining and helping bring to life the worlds of Myst also composed soundtracks for the game and its sequel Riven. Robyn went quiet for a few years after the latter, reportedly working on an animated film codenamed Green Tea. Then he appeared on the web (Tinselman, here) and later disclosed his recent creative efforts in the form of an album co-authored with friend Keith Moore. They call themselves Ambo, the project is 1000 Years and 1 Day, and it is a marvel.



I suppose you could label it prog rock, but that feels reductive. I don't really have a name for it myself, but there's Robyn's powerful atmospherics and abstract poetry married to Keith's plaintive vocal and crushing love songs. The biggest love here though, as noted above, is that for God. Hence the album's very real and persistent struggle with life, death, faith, sin, redemption and possible salvation for its "lead character", who is certainly abandoned and lovelorn, may or may not be a murderer, and eventually comes to terms with his grief and guilt to seek forgiveness. Whether he gets it remains in question, but I suggest you needn't take any one interpretation to heart. Robyn and Keith both seem willing to leave your experience of this art open, and that's a lovely confidence. Setting aside any lyrical reading, the music is outstanding in its invention and evocation.

So it's currently part of my life's soundtrack, and my work's too.

You can take a preview listen here: Ambo

If you're moved like I was, you can grab the whole thing at iTunes or CDBaby or Amazon.