Catskills-based composer and sound artist Matthew O’Neill released his new album Through to Us on October 16 via Panther Mountain. This ten-track album offers an exploration of nature through immersive compositions that blur the boundaries between ambient soundscapes, experimental sound, and musical improvisation.
O’Neill wouldn’t describe his work on Through to Us as simply incorporating sounds from the environment into his compositions.
“I collaborate directly with the living beings, mountains, streams, energies, through embodied relationship,” he says. This distinction is central to the album’s identity. Across it’s ten pieces, sound emerges through attention, improvisation, and the willingness to let place shape the creative process.
For O’Neill, that relationship has developed living in the Catskills, a place he describes as expanding his capacity for connection. “I consider myself a professional listener,” he says, framing listening as a reciprocal practice that creates community and new possibilities.
Field recordings, synthesizers, piano, and upright bass intermingle with sounds drawn from the surrounding environment, creating a tactile body of work that rewards patience and attention.
The title track captures this approach. Recorded in a wooden studio with the doors and windows open to the Catskills landscape, the piece grew through intuitive responses on synthesizer and piano. O’Neill also explored the sounds of metal bars played against cedar logs and antler scraped across wet stone. These unique tactics transform the physical encounters with the environment into musical dialogue.
The methods of composition solidify Through to Us as less of a conventional composition but instead an unfolding exchange between artist and setting. As the album shifts between recognizable instruments and sonic terrain, O’Neill effectively offers the opportunity to experience sound as an encounter with place, memory, and other forms of life.
O’Neill’s work asks listeners to reconsider the way music functions to connect us to the places and beings we share. Through to Us is an invitation to listen more deeply and to recognize our place in the world around us.
Keep up with Matthew O’Neill through his Website, Instagram, and Bandcamp.
Listen to Through to Us here, and watch “Through to Us” video below.
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