Reviews - “The Broken Silence (2000)”

“The Broken Silence” (2000 release) review by AmbiEntrance

While brian parnham is a practicing digeridu-ist, he doesn't limit himself to those earthy growling tones, focusing more on creating ambient soundworlds through additional synthesis, processing, sampling and other sparingly applied bits of ethno-tribal musicalia. The Broken Silence which results makes for mesmerizing listening...

In Forthcoming (7:49), a rhythmically churning core is laden with buzzing circuitry, tinkling ceramics, indecipherable radio chatter and who knows what else... Despite their different activities, disparate layers manage to work well, fading to a thinner, ghostlier version as the track ends. Cricket music and tendrils of synth haze are only the first traces of Solace in Solitude (29:50); as the name implies, this one is more serene, though the spaciously drifting atmospheres are not without edgy undertones. Soft-edged sonic entities come and go, from shifting string-like sweeps, to blurred bellsounds, to almost-subterranean rumbles, to seemingly subaquatic bumps and thumps... all just slowly swirling in a delicious molten spiral. Half-heard phantasmal howls and an ominously growing clatter heighten a sense of foreboding in the final moments.

While the previous pieces are unanchored in time or space, Silent Millenium has a more specific timeframe, being laced with "Shortwave Ambiance" and other source material recorded on New Year's Eve as the clocks and computers rolled over into the year 2000. These samples though are sparsely used, as the grittily adorned track mainly spends its 15 minutes floating in a brassily ringing haze and/or being stroked by slow, thrumming tribal percussion and trickling sands.

brian parnham's three tracks add up to 53 minutes of gorgeous submersive listening. Didj and other tribal noisemakers add flavor to, but certainly do not override the dreamlike sound constructions, which seem more as if they were "organically-grown" than "built". The Broken Silence is a recommended 8.6 earful.

Break your own silence by visiting Floating Point Records to get more info...

This review posted July 29, 2000

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