The USA-based Carolyn Fok, an award-winning sound designer, artist, writer, and electronic and experimental music pioneer, whose work spans over five decades since she first dabbled with her father's TEAC recorder and home-made instruments, will release her new album, Chrysalis, an immersive sounding collection of analogue ambient pieces and a powerful sonic meditation on the mystery of life's emergence, both on a cosmic scale and within the human experience, on 1 August.

On what is a conceptual yet emotional release, Fok explores the parallels between the birth of life in the universe and her journey of creating life as a woman. Bringing both precision and a degree of vulnerability via its ambient passages, fractured rhythms and electronic textures, Chrysalis unfolds with an often awe-inspiring, cinematic sheen.

Drawing on Fok's fascination with cosmology, the album imagines the formative chaos of the early universe - chemical reactions, stars igniting, planets coalescing - juxtaposed with the equally miraculous transformation of a human being formed from near nothing. Inviting its listeners to consider the mystery of how life begins, whether from stardust or spirit, it speaks to the fragility of becoming, the courage it takes to carry and create, as well as the beauty of transformation.

Also recognised under her alias Cyrnai for contributions to electronica and the avant-garde since first releasing music in the mid-80s, Fok brings decades of experience to Chrysalis. Channelling her legacy into what is a deeply personal work, it speaks to the quiet intensity of emergence and the mystery of creation.

Chrysalis has been mastered by ambient music luminary Robert Rich, gaining an added dimension through his sonic precision and deepening the album's introspective journey across inner and cosmic space. Link