A reflection on Reflection

Reflection by Father2006 is an ambient album released in 2016.It is one of the strongest examples of music expressing strong and complicated emotion while being minimal in presentation.

Despite how minimal the presentation and concept may be, Father2006 still finds a way to inject feelings of depression, anxiety and comfort throughout the album.

“Reflection” first and foremost has a couple of contradicting feelings within it, with the most overwhelming being how the music is both comforting and tense. The album stays comforting, at least as a baseline throughout, primarily because of its insane repetition. Through most of “Reflection,” Father2006 takes samples and repeats them, with some of these songs having layers of samples on top of each other.

The main exception to this rule, though, is the starting point to the album, its title track “Reflection.” This song repeats samples exactly 16 times each before moving onto the next sample, which creates a calming, hypnotic effect.

When I listen to this song, I can’t help but feel like Father2006 is trying to convey that while yes, the predetermined amount of sample loops evokes a sense of calm and familiarity, behind it there’s nothing but a stoic and sterile environment.

The track perfectly encapsulates that feeling when you want something more out of life but are stuck in that loop of familiarity and safeness you’ve built. The loops have slight variations to them throughout the song, but they never go out of that realm of established comfort set through the song.

If “Reflection” was the track that establishes this limbo, “Waking Up the Same” is the moment where you realize that you’re in it. The track immediately goes into this almost industrial rhythm that mimics the sinking feeling of entering a job that you hate. It reminds me of a rattling inside my brain, one that I can’t shake no matter how hard I try. Father2006 uses the space in this track to bring out that dread you can never put your finger on but wears you out anyways.

“Someone Else” reminds me of the feeling of trying to go back into that comfort that you’ve known but make an active effort rather than just living in it. The song starts off simple and adds some pleasant flourishes throughout but becomes slower and deeper around the five-and-a-half-minute mark. This is the point where you realize you physically cannot live in this cycle anymore.

Father2006’s decision to shift the entire song into a lower register (including some flourishes throughout the song) perfectly encapsulates that underlying dread feeling the album keeps going back to.

Then, we get to “Loosing Everything.” The three-song run of “Loosing Everything,” “Sinking In” and “Voices” all remind me of descending points of being in a depressive state when a huge revelation like this happens.

“Loosing Everything” is the out-of-body experience you receive before depression hits your brain. Father2006 manipulates the samples in this song to create a feeling of an almost ethereal shock. Throughout the song,many samples build up until they loop back to the beginning, almost like how you hold back tears during a heated moment in an argument.

The aptly titled “Sinking In” is when you start to fall into a deep depression and think about how long it tookyou to realize all this time that you need to break out of this loop. Father2006’s samples here recall minimal glitch albums of the late 90s but reimagines them into this deep, brooding moment. The song gets slightly more emotional close to the end, but overall has you in this sad, dark state.

If “Sinking In” was you falling into a deep depression, “Voices” is you being suffocated by it. The whole song is submerged into this sub-bass atmosphere that feels like you’re drowning in this low moment. The voices in the background that appear throughout the song remind me of hearing others while actively dissociating but not quite understanding them. Throughout the song, Father2006 keeps this groove as well, which could represent you continuing throughout your daily life while these feelings infect your brain.

“Tomorrow” acts as a breaking point. It’s the biggest statement and climactic point of the album. It represents the step you take to break the loop and find ways to see life in an optimistic light again. Throughout its 11-minute runtime, Father2006 adds layers that make the song feel spacious and full of life, similar to looking at a landscape after hiking for several miles. The vocal samples add to this feeling by sounding like exclamations of joy and happiness. “Tomorrow” embodies a break in the loop, something you find that makes you happier and fuller than before, even if the change was scary.

“Untitled” ends the album on a question mark. The song stays in the footsteps of “Tomorrow” by being pitched higher but retains the heaviness of earlier tracks. The whole track has an uncertain energy, like you’re worried about returning to that old loop after you take steps to break it and live more freely. The residual anxiety stays with you, with some parts of the song having more obvious sample loops than others.

Father2006’s combination of samples may seem simple on paper, but throughout the album, he takes the listener on a journey. Through viscerally dark and broody tracks, tracks that feel like something’s off, the ending’s release and addition of joy and the beginning’s cold comfort, Father2006 has an album that listeners will remember for years to come.

*NOTE: “Tomorrow” has been taken down on Father2006’s Bandcamp Page due to a DMCA takedown request. The song is still up on streaming services and YouTube.