Luke Howard looks to his Australian homeland with a love letter to its vulnerable ecosystem, which is at the mercy of modern life. His music captures the blistering heat of the outback in "Alien Moonscape," sun beating down in oppressive waves. Howard paints vivid images of the vast horizons with slow-moving strings, gentle pipe organ, solo vocals, and, for the first time in his music, wordless choir. His debt to Arvo Pärt’s holy minimalism can be heard in “Spare" as harmonies shift and dissolve in the Australian breeze, while "Andamooka Station" creates an illusion of suffocation and oppression with its bending, dizzying tonalities. The Sand That Ate the Sea culminates with “Future Coda,” a shimmering, symphonic supplication.