Trillion: Perfect Freq (trillion)

Many have doubtless lost track of Jody Lloyd, the Christchurch producer/rapper with his Dark Tower outfit who delivered the excellent Shadows on a Flat Land debut almost 20 years ago and the award-nominated follow-up Canterbury Drafts in 2001.

That's becase he has continued to operate under a number of pseudonyms, the most prominent (but still somewhat off the grid) Trillion.

Most recently he was based in Bali (may still be) where he was learning healing through music and sound therapy, and this new album was recorded partly there, but also in Bangladesh and New Zealand. The main singer is New Zealand's Josephine Costain, but among the credits are singers and players from Iran, Australia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the USA and India.

However this is not some world music mash-up but rather music for relaxation and focused meditation.

"The whole album is designed to be listened to while laying down, relaxed and present in the mind," he said in recent e-mail.

So the ambience is slow and the mood relaxed, although sometimes his brief raps have a brooding quality . . . and no matter how gently Costain sings it, "All things must die" doesn't exactly make me feel at ease.

But this is not an album of individual tracks so much as a deep immersion into relaxing sound, gentle allusions to Indian music (drones, the flute, gentle chants) and a time-out, horizontal mood. Tellingly, the download comes with separate tracks but also lengthy continuous play versions. 

I know I should have been lying down when listening to this, but I've had this on quiet, repeat play while I've been doing some reading and computer work this past fortnight and its endlessly inventive, soft melodies and mood have been relaxing . . . and the hours have just passed in a wash of pastel shades and muscle loosening sound.

Check it out here. It's hard to pull away from, and you probably won't want to.