Each Measure Feature: Adam Bokesch
FEATURE
When I think of sleeplessness, I think of tossing sheets and frazzled nerves, my muscles mutinous towards a worn out and restless mind. Bokesch, however, writes a different version. The atmospheres he creates throughout Light, Remembered are a new perspective on insomnia: one of tranquility and sweeping waves of sensation, a surrender to the presence of one’s perception.
This perspective comes from a personal place, the creator himself, Adam Bokesch. Bokesch has had an interesting musical career thus far, spanning a chapter as a touring drummer before shifting towards cinematic and commercial composition. His solo releases find a new flavor of tenderness and passion for the more healing soundscapes of ambient music. These albums delve into natural soundscapes and vibrational tones, accompaniments to one’s individual practice of relaxation. This latest album delves into a new liminal space of insomnia, a topic from personal struggle.
With this album Bokesch himself recounts his own relationship to sleep, or lack thereof. The compositions drift with waves of sound sweeping in and out with different qualities, the mellow swell of a string section contrasting with the delicate muted sound of keys like raindrops in a pond. Bokesch talks about the album as one that explores his cycles of sleep and inspiration and the space between waking and dreaming.
In the bustle and acceleration of life on scales small and large, this music transports me to a place of vapor and colorlessness, without opinion or fact but simply presence. My personal favorites are the more playful “Fracture Bloom” and, fittingly, the haunting, echoey sound of “Sleepless.” That being said, the whole album is a wonderful journey that can infuse one with the medicine of peacefulness. Each track offers a new experience, some with more melody and rhythm (“Shapeshift”), while others find a more drifting lull (“Dusk, Embraced”). In a beautiful way, the album becomes a way to encounter the healing of sleep—while being awake. Being a yoga teacher, I usually encounter a few interesting picks on my most listened-to tracks of the year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Bokesch’s makes its way there by 2026.
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