»Sonic Healing« is the third full-length release by Martin Steer’s Bad Stream project. Conceived and recorded in March 2020, it reflects the tectonic shifts in society taking place at that time while also responding to personal tragedy: having suffered a stroke, his mother lost her language ability. Having been deprived of verbal and physical interaction with other humans, her son’s music became her primary means of communication with him. For the album, Steer sent a single guitar loop to twelve musicians from the extended network of his ANTIME label who improvised with the recording, which was later collaged by Steer into a single, 39 minute long track that stylistically ranges from feverish jazz to brooding ambient and abstract electronica. Together with the Iranian artist Arash Akbari’s vivid animations based on generative algorithms and real-time processing, »Sonic Healing« does not ask how one person can deal with turmoil in their life alone, but how we can create new forms of being together with art as a mediator.
