Water Messages on Desert Sand

It was made with an E-MU Emax 12-bit sampler, with samples processed using pitch-shifting and granular techniques. Ethnographic field recordings are layered with synthesizer, piano, guitar, horns and percussion, and a Stranded Records reviewer heard echoes of ambient techno, early IDM, spiritual jazz and library music. The same reviewer compared it to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Jon Hassell's fourth world, called the duo more varied and more sensitive to the cultures behind the sound, and thought it arguably the best of their discography. Musci's site calls it a landmark recording combining field recordings, acoustic instruments, electronics and non-Western musical materials.

Music From Memory's notes and Musci's own pages say it was Grammy-nominated in the UK in 1987; we could not confirm this independently, and the Grammys are a US award, so we leave it as their claim. Fond/Sound's Diego Olivas reviewed it on July 17, 2018.