Reliquary by Reid Willis

Returning for his third album on Mesh, New Orleans based composer and producer Reid Willis presents Reliquary, a vast and expansive work that challenges the boundaries between underground experimentation and classical form.

Just as his work rejects conventional definitions of genre—instead creating vast soundscapes in the liminal spaces between feeling and expression—Willis rejects traditional separations between the roles of composer, sound designer, and producer. Acting as all of the above, the classically trained pianist refuses to ever settle into one category. His productions honour that which has come before in both tone and aesthetic, but ultimately, his prolific output reimagines the familiar within texture-rich frameworks that never shy away from the strange or unconventional.

With Reliquary, Willis explores the notion that albums, as a form, are living archives of an artist’s past and future: a tomb to the parts they have shed and a shrine to the parts they are still discovering. In this way, each track can be seen as a relic of the artist’s very being. No part could exist without the others, so that seemingly conflicting emotions and sounds stand side-by-side to create a balanced and boundless sonic dimension.

Reliquary opens with “Mutual Fawn”, a slowed down dose of chugging angular machine funk layered with intertwining cinematic threads. “Diamond Spitter”’ is anchored by a murky vocal sample measured against labyrinthine bass and mutating, skeletal percussive details. “Aura Amora” delves into cavernous halls of noise with downtempo drum patterns and orchestral swells, while “Underpunished” further shatters the boundaries between power electronics, film score, and IDM as it rattles through frantic glitches and remnants of trance.
Throughout Reliquary, melodies with a timeless sense of character are mediated against mutating textural backdrops. In the moments where these melodies have dissipated, such as “Sincerio,” Willis’ distinctive photorealistic sound design captures a complex and lucidly imagined sense of emotion.

As Willis’ latest exercise in rejecting formality, Reliquary is both limitless in its ability to consider new arrangements and generous in the space it allows for each track to explore the contours and subterranean depths of the human experience.