In botanical taxonomy, a plant graft defies simple binary classification; it is neither entirely an individual organism nor precisely two. It represents a living synthesis—a rootstock fused with a scion to yield a resilient, hybridized third entity. This concept of the botanical chimera serves as an apt metaphor for Cyano, the latest masterwork from composer, ambient artist, and Florist bandleader Emily A. Sprague.
Bridging the expansive, textural experimentation of her solo ambient records (Water Memory, Mount Vision, Hill, Flower, Fog) with the intimate, melodic folk-songwriting paradigm of her band, Cyano occupies a distinct, uncharted sonic territory. Crafted using modular synthesizers, vocals, and field recordings captured during a winter solstice retreat in rural Iceland, the album is both diaristic and cosmological. Conceptually anchored to an imaginary, barren planet bearing the same name, Cyano investigates ecological collapse, forced assimilation, and the arduous, necessary reclamation of human empathy.
Through an extensive discourse, Sprague unpacks the multi-year genesis of the project, her fascination with the aesthetics of imperfection (wabi-sabi), the parallels between photographic cyanotypes and modular synthesis, and how science fiction provides a vital lens for processing earthly realities.
Detailed Chronology: The Making of Cyano
The roots of Cyano reach back to late 2019, during a transformative winter solstice trip to Iceland that Sprague took with her partner, photographer and filmmaker V Haddad. While immersed in the striking juxtaposition of extreme darkness and the luminous, shifting curtains of the aurora borealis over a remote fjord, Sprague began conceptualizing a new artistic chapter.
Armed with a handheld Zoom recorder, her trusty original Teenage Engineering OP-1, and a Monome Norms running the "MLR" script—an intuitive, playful live sampler—Sprague captured the sonic and atmospheric environment of the far north.
The Inception (2019): Field recordings and photographic documentation gathered during the Icelandic winter solstice establish the atmospheric foundation of the project. The stark, minimalist landscape mirrors the vacuum-like surface of the fictional planet Cyano.
The Collaborative Internal Dialogue (2020–2023): For years, Sprague wrestled with how to bridge her twin musical identities: the avant-garde instrumentalist and the lyric-driven folk songwriter. Initially, placing these two distinct parts of her artistic psyche in the same room felt awkward and forced.
The Modular Breakthrough: Moving away from traditional DAW-based production, Sprague anchored Cyano almost entirely in a modular synthesis workflow. Crucially, for the first time, she structured her modular system to allow patch recalls, transforming ephemeral sonic experimentation into reproducible, evolving compositions.
Finalizing the Transmission: Eschewing overly elaborate narrative devices or polished narrative arcs, Sprague settled on a intentionally primitive, open-ended poetic structure, finalizing the record as an emotional artifact of a transitional era in her life.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Sound Design and Aesthetic Philosophy
The Mechanics of the Modular
Cyano represents a technical milestone for Sprague. While modular synthesis is traditionally celebrated for its impermanence—where patches are dismantled and lost to time once a session concludes—Sprague engineered a workaround. By developing a system capable of patch recall, she preserved the emotional resonance and specific timbral shifts of her improvisations without sacrificing the raw, tactile nature of hardware instruments. Approximately 99% of the record relies on this modular setup, supplemented by sparse synth overdubs.
Textural Sonics and Organic Materiality
In designing the soundscape for a world stripped bare by ecological and societal collapse, Sprague looked beyond traditional synthesizer presets. She conceptualized Cyano as a dusty, tactile environment, drawing inspiration from physical elements:
The Elements: Wood, rock, dirt, air, water, and lava.
The Objective: Rather than attempting literal foley emulation, Sprague sought to evoke the physical interactions of these materials through synthesized timbres that feel slightly rough around the edges—grounded, imperfect, and resonant.
The Influence of Anna Atkins and Cyanotypes
Sprague’s aesthetic vocabulary for the record is deeply indebted to 19th-century botanist and photographer Anna Atkins, a pioneer of the cyanotype process. Utilizing sunlight to expose chemical-treated paper, cyanotypes yield striking monochromatic blue prints characterized by a deliberate softness of detail.
For Sprague, this process mirrors her compositional philosophy: keeping arrangements minimalist, collaborating with reality through field recordings and natural light, and embracing the poetic ambiguity that comes from leaving things slightly unpolished.
Official Statements: In Conversation with Emily A. Sprague
Bridging Two Selves
"I’ve been thinking of it as putting two different parts of myself in the same room and seeing what happens when they meet and have a conversation… It definitely feels like a new chapter."
Reflecting on the initial friction of combining her instrumental and songwriting practices, Sprague admits that the process felt unnatural for a prolonged period.
"I went back and forth on it, feeling like those two sides of me would always be kind of separate, but finally something clicked and here we are."
Artifacts, Imperfection, and Wabi-Sabi
Sprague is an avid collector of ephemera—receipts, handwritten notes dating back 15 years, paintings by her mother, and natural objects collected on walks. She views Cyano as an extension of this archiving impulse.
"I wanted the record itself to sound like a transmission coming from a specific time and place, similar to a postcard or a handwritten letter that you might have kept from a family member or a friend. Something that can evoke a sense of time, and also change."
This reverence for wear and tear traces back to her early discovery of wabi-sabi in a library book. Feeling like an awkward teenager who did not quite fit into the world, Sprague was drawn to imperfect aesthetics not as an ideal to achieve, but as an honest reflection of her internal reality.
"These days, I don’t really have positive or negative labels for imperfection, because what exists in this world naturally is already perfect. I’m just trying to appreciate things as they are."
Sci-Fi as a Mirror
Addressing the narrative framework of Cyano—set on a barren planet suffering the aftermath of "assimilated symbiosis" and extractive groupthink—Sprague clarifies that the science-fiction setting serves primarily as a poetic vehicle rather than a rigid conceptual script.
"The character, for me, is like a reflecting pool of my own relationship to myself and how it feels to be in transformation through different stages of life… The sci-fi element comes from my own experience with using the genre as a lens to look at my life and at our world."
Drawing inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Sprague relished the freedom of stepping away from direct autobiographical confessionals.
"With this album, I could be more of an observational narrator of this little sandbox-y world and piece together words and lines that felt connected to each other… It was nice to write lyrics where I was able to write more poetically."
Future Outlook
With Cyano now completed and prepared for public transmission, Emily A. Sprague finds herself unburdened by commercial expectations or the pressure to manufacture a specific commercial product. Having spent years releasing music designed to court external audiences, she approaches her creative future with a profound sense of liberation.
The project does not signal a permanent abandonment of her previous avenues, nor is it a one-off experiment. Instead, Cyano functions as a permanent third pillar in her discography—a thriving botanical graft where her ambient instrumentation and lyrical songcraft meet on equal footing.
"I’ll continue to make Florist albums, and I’ll continue to make instrumental-only ambient releases. Cyano is almost like another persona, a third option… I feel very free to make whatever feels true to me… I don’t feel any pressure or anything, so I’m really excited for the future."
Ultimately, Cyano stands as an invitation: a reminder to embrace personal transformation, to honor the beauty of vulnerability, and to recognize that empathy and connection remain our most vital tools in a complex and unpredictable universe.
