Elori Saxl’s new full-length album Earth Focus consists of material Elori created to soundtrack the PBS show of the same name.

Earth Focus (the TV series) delves into the intricate connections between Southern California’s natural landscapes and urban development. Each episode explores a specific location, including the Los Angeles River, Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Mojave Desert. Saxl’s music underscores the emotional narratives of these places, emphasizing the interplay between humans and nature and the impact of human-constructed environments.

Saxl crafted the music using digitally manipulated recordings of water and wind, analog synthesizers, MIDI samples, and processed woodwinds (clarinet, bass clarinet, flute) performed by Stuart Bogie. The music loosely references the psychedelic and dreamlike sounds often associated with Los Angeles’ past and present but with a twist, blending real and synthetic elements and foregrounding the artificiality of sample sounds as a way of reflecting the palpable sense of the landscape being constructed and increasingly precarious.