Drag City bringen Ende Februar das fünfte Album “Sonescent” von Whitney Johnson alias Matchess heraus, die auch als Teil des Chicagoer Improv-Duos Damiana bekannt ist. Das Album geht auf Johnsons Erfahrung während einer intensiven Vipassana-Meditation zurück, v.a. auf eine zehntägige Praktik der Stille von Körper, Sprache und Geist. Die vier ambienten Tracks auf “Sonescent”, das neben Johnsons Gesang, Elektronik, Streichern und Orgelparts die Beiträge von mehr als einer Handvoll Gästen an klassischen Instrumenten beinhaltet, ist selbst als meditativer Akt konzipiert. Das Album erscheint als LP und in den gängigen digitalen Formaten. 
“Whitney found herself hearing the sound of her body as never before”, heißt es beim Label mit Bezug auf die Meditation, ferner “It was only once her mind became involved that she began to hear songs too, which she wasn’t able to write down or sing and record without violating the practice of Noble Silence. Eventually, when she returned from her retreat, she set about recalling what she’d heard and writing it down. While writing, she elected to score the songs for other musicians to play, a defining step of departure from all previous Matchess productions. This took time; first, in the drawing of the pieces up from herself, almost as muscle memories, and writing them as music. Then, the conducting of her chosen ensembles, a new and challenging direction in her process.
Once she had them all fully captured, another memory prevailed, inspiring the album’s final form, in which Whitney placed the songs into the expansive void from which they’d emerged – a largely discreet, but acoustically active inner space, where the songs often only barely intrude, heard as if from a great distance. With Soncescent, the fragile nature of our mind state is represented with the delicacy of almost completely disintegrated sounds as they drift weightlessly in and out of our perception. To create the space of this unseen world, Whitney used binuaral sine waves, ARP Odyssey synth, loops and no input mixing techniques. The editing and mixing of this material renders it in gauze, smoke, and whispers – an exquisite barely-thereness.” (Drag City)