Following news of her passing in December, RVNG Intl. will release Pauline Anna Strom‘s first album in over 30 years.
Strom was a blind American electronic music composer and synthesist best known under the pseudonym Trans-Millenia Consort. She made seven recordings between 1982 and 1988, including three LPs and four cassette tapes, before selling her equipment and concentrating her energy on spiritual practices. It wasn’t until 2017, when RVNG Intl. compiled Strom’s early catalog on the anthology release Trans-Millenia Music, that she became inspired to make music again.
Angel Tears in Sunlight is an assemblage of music that “refracts the expansiveness, and minutiae, of imagined realms while embracing the kaleidoscopic echoes of our distant epochs,” we’re told. She composed and recorded it in her San Francisco apartment populated by a compact array of modern instruments and her beloved iguanas, Little Soulstice and Ms. Huff. This sanctuary is where she recorded all her work in the ’80s.
Where Angel Tears in Sunlight opens a new passage in the transportive power of Strom’s work, the synthesist also nurtures more space for restorative listening, drawing from her experience in spiritual healing.
The album is dedicated to Strom’s dear friend John Jennings, who passed away during the making of Angel Tears in Sunlight.
A portion of the album’s proceeds will benefit the International Iguana Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting conservation, awareness, and scientific programs that enhance the survival of wild iguanas and their habitats.
Strom died in December 2020, aged 74. You can read her New York Times obituary here.
Tracklisting
01. Tropical Convergence
02. Marking Time
03. I Still Hope
04. Temple Gardens at Midnight
05. The Pulsation
06. The Eighteen Beautiful Memories
07. Equatorial Sunrise
08. Small Reptiles on the Forest Floor
09. Tropical Rainforest
Angel Tears in Sunlight LP is scheduled for February 19 release on RVNG Intl. You can order the album here and stream “Equatorial Sunrise” below.
