As much as I love full-length solo albums, there is always a different, special feeling when I encounter the collaborative work of a favorite artist. It gives an artist previously familiar to the listener a chance to stretch out and try new ideas and sounds--often freshening that artist's sound considerably in the process. Ambient music collaborations are common, thankfully, and often represent the best albums the genre has to offer. While I certainly don't believe Anthony Wright's musical project Ashera needs any sound freshening, I was particularly interested to see what regions he'd end up in throughout his first collaboration with the prolific Brannan Lane, Sextant. Ashera's sound occupies a narrow (though impressively expressive and beautiful) niche in ambient. Lane himself is something of a stylistic chameleon, creating varied works in each of the ambient sub-genres, though never with a voice that one can consider Lane's own. Just where would a collaboration between these two go, and would it be a complimentary journey?
