Sophia Aya expands a protest into a meditative odyssey with "Slow Trees"
With Slow Trees and its companion piece Slow Trees (Vocal Deepener), Sophia Aya transforms Kat Kikta’s searing pro-peace anthem into a pair of sprawling soundscapes that feel less like songs and more like environments. At 13 minutes and 33 seconds each, these remixes are designed for full immersion creating intimate moments where you set everything else aside and sort of let the music wash right over you.
Where Kikta’s original Cherry Trees spoke plainly and urgently about the human toll of war, from Ukraine to Gaza, Aya approaches the same plea for peace from a different angle, one rooted in patience, stillness, and a slow-burning emotional build. The absence of lyrics doesn’t dilute the message rather it deepens it. You feel the weight of the subject in the atmosphere itself, in the way each note seems to hover in midair before dissolving.
The first mix, Slow Trees, eases you in with shimmering textures that roll forward like morning fog, gradually layering ambient tones and subtle rhythmic pulses until the track feels alive and breathing. The “vocals” here are more a timbral element than a lyrical one creating these short, sustained notes drifting through the background. Aya uses the runtime to create a gradual, almost tidal shift in energy, building tension in such fine increments that you don’t notice the ascent until you’re suddenly somewhere entirely new.
Slow Trees (Vocal Deepener) feels like its sibling track gazing inward rather than outward. The palette is similar, but here the vocal textures are slightly thicker, warmer, and closer to the surface. There’s a meditative gravity to the piece (similar to the original), with stretches of near stillness that allow every sound to fully register.
Without a doubt though, both of these pieces share an ethereal beauty that’s as much about the silences between sounds as the sounds themselves. In a time when most music aims for instant gratification, Aya has the confidence to move slowly, to let each moment unfold naturally. We don’t often receive pieces like these, but given the context and messaging, we immediately loved it!
As remixes, they’re more than reinterpretations, they’re expansions that turn a direct protest into an act of contemplation. The political heart still beats within them but it offers listeners not just a reminder of the world’s wounds, but also a space to imagine its healing. Both versions are worth experiencing in full, which is we’ve linked everything you need below to get into it. Don’t forget to follow along either to stay tuned for more.
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