after the deluge

“Glyn Maier has spent the last decade or more getting away. Unincorporated Maine and different pockets of mountainous living in North Carolina have comprised the backdrops to his focused isolation. In these remote rural settings, Glyn has been able to filter out the pulsating irregularities of metropolitan paces, instead raising his canine companion Honeycow on long walks through wooded trails and working on a very intentional music practice. Glyn is a softly-spoken, profoundly kind, and sensible man. He does not eat meat. He goes to great lengths to ensure the music he puts out on his label, enmossed, is produced with the most environmentally sustainable packaging options possible. He drinks natural wine, he spends time with his synthesizers, he looks out into the lush greenery around him. This greenery negotiates generative creative inspiration for him, and acts as a membrane that allows for a holistic version of a reality he wants to carve for himself.

Nature has its own temperaments, though, and it is wholly a folly to romanticize it as a passive entity. Modernity and capitalism intrinsically rely on the alienation of man from nature, and in that gap, mankind antagonizes nature with its penchant for expansionist lust and consumptive compulsions. Humans exacerbate the fickle nature of weather and climate conditions, and nature speaks back to humanity in ways unimaginable to plan for. Against this reality, Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina in 2024, causing the governor to declare a state of emergency. The state was unprepared for the level of damage that the citizens would incur, and the citizenry would find little financial or logistical relief from higher governmental organizations in the United States. Mountain passes were too unsafe to traverse, and it took weeks to months for certain areas to actually recover from the destruction of the storm and its aftereffects.

While the storm was a tragic and devastating ordeal for his community, Glyn took to field recording his locale to work through the experience during a month without power. When we spoke about this record, Glyn told me the five compositions are the result of these field recordings being processed through analog filters, and the distinct resonances that result from that filter use. I find this layered process charming and resolved. With no power, the field recorder became a filter, a mediator, for Maier’s processing of the obliteration surrounding him. When power was restored and the field recordings were processed, these filters brought new, productive life to an awful experience. At times the record is brooding, while at other moments it sounds almost ecclesiastical.

When I think of Glyn, I think about Arvo Pärt. Part of that has to do with the many conversations we have had about the composer over the years. Other reasons permeate, though. The way Pärt distills massive themes of humanity's complex emotional order through minimal and intimate sonic gestures is not unlike Glyn's own ability to distill his surroundings into minimalism. Here, with this record, we see that most explicitly. In his isolation, he crafts again a beautiful album, finding beauty in the face of despair and against the odds of convenience. In this place, Glyn Maier shines his truest colors and garners the substantive forces of his uniquely creative approach to making music. I am so thankful he had some spare batteries before the storm hit.”

Nick Klein, June 2026
—
“In late September 2024 I was living north of Spruce Pine, in Mitchell County, NC. It had been steadily raining during the week before Hurricane Helene’s visit, so by the time it arrived, I was quite adept at using a snow shovel to clear water out of my place’s basement. I watched with unease as Helene gathered strength that week. Even without severe weather, power would usually go out once a week, maybe for a few hours, maybe for the whole day. Appalachia has never been a priority for infrastructure investment, to put it lightly. So I began stockpiling food and water, since my well pump couldn’t function without power. On September 26, the rain increased. I saw a photo of the Linville Falls picnic tables, which are well away from and above the river, underwater. This was going to be bad. I started charging every battery in the house and headed to the store one more time. The parking lot was already flooding. After I grabbed a few things, the last remaining workers who were locking down the store waved me past the darkened registers. I rushed to get home before the roads became impassable. There, I went back to shoveling water out of the basement. Power and cell service both went out around 9 PM as the wind intensified. By midnight, the howling gale was a physical, intestinal sensation, coupled with disorienting changes in wind direction, mini-tornadoes quarreling with each other, like a hydra stuck in the hollers. I retreated to the most structurally sound part of the house and comforted Honeycow, a hound who is suspicious of the smallest of storms. We watched the massive 100+ ft white pine trees in front of the house being buffeted back and forth, eventually snapping like toothpicks as the winds hit their 100+ mph peak around 5-6 AM.

Around midmorning, the winds eased. The rain sublimated to mist. A few rays of sunshine crept through the window. Only one tree had hit the house; no structural damage. I checked in with my elderly neighbor. She was fine — shaken but glad we were safe. We looked in shock at the closest mountain, with nearly every one of its thousands of trees flattened. I joined other neighbors in clearing downed trees and brush from the road, imagining I could walk over the ridge and connect to the cell tower on the other side of the mountain to check on my family, who live in the area. The North Toe River was unrecognizable. The river had inundated the road and train tracks next to it. Houses, cars, trucks, propane tanks, and debris of all sorts were floating away. Honeycow and I eventually made it over the ridge, a six-hour expedition over and around downed trees that used to be a 30-minute stroll. No cell service. There wouldn’t be until six weeks later, a week after power was restored. A couple days later, anarchists on dirtbikes showed up with a satellite dish, making our first communication with loved ones outside of the area possible, before moving on to the next valley after a few hours.  A few days after that, volunteer firefighters from Oklahoma arrived (“called by God”) with a proper crane to clear out the largest remaining trees blocking the roads. As Marta says, “The truly important things in America get done by volunteers.” My faith in humanity was keenly sharpened, as was my awe of our shared planet.

Following the deluge, after spending the daylight hours clearing debris, I left my field recorder on during the long, quiet evenings. It was a few days before the creatures of the forest returned to their nightly choruses and chatter. Those ostensibly empty sounds are the basis for this album. I processed them iteratively through analog filters, tape, and granular plugins, meditating on the time after the deluge. There is never nothing. Hope is our shared consciousness.”

Glyn Maier, May 2026