Back in August we introduced Illusion of an Inland Ocean, the brand new album from Portland, Oregon–based American–German composer, producer and visual artist Eric Angelo Bessel. Arriving hot on the heels of 2025’s Mirror At Night and its b-side sister release but no less ambitious for it, the release promises to be every bit as evocative and ambiguous as its predecessors. “Consisting of eighteen interlinked compositions, Illusion of an Inland Ocean plays like an exercise in cartography,” as we wrote in our preview, “mapping the contours of a mysterious location which exists just beyond the ordinary confines of the world, inviting the listener along for the expedition so that we too might wander in our own act of discovery.”
The style offers the listener a more active role than most records, Bessel not so much showing the soundscape he created as inviting us to chart our own path through it. “An effort to conjure a sense of place which goes beyond traditional world-building,” as we continued, “working to not merely create something new but evoke the sense of revealing something which has always been present, waiting for someone with the patience and attention to bring them to light.” What results is an album crafted in the lineage of William Basinski and The Caretaker, where the borders between landscape, memory and fiction blur into an encompassing whole.
The album is now a month away from release via Lore City Music, and Eric Angelo Bessel has shared brand new single ‘Book of Astrology’. With the cryptic connotations of its esoteric title held aloft, the song is a perfect example of duality’s at the heart of the project. A sound brought to life with ambient textures that might be primal or futuristic, and one which utilises the tension between the withheld and the apparent to keep the audience engaged. Illusion of an Inland Ocean is a record that’s as capable of enveloping a listener as it is demanding their attention, and promises to be the most mysterious and thrilling release of Bessel’s career to date.
Illusion of an Inland Ocean will be released on the 30th October via Lore City Music and you can pre-order it now.
