The Infinite Tides

The Sentimental Drift sees the return of Black Swan. His music – described as ‘drones for bleeding hearts’ – has always contained within it a ton of emotion, personal in its expression and deep in its significance. And The Sentimental Drift has most definitely been worth the long wait. At first, smooth synths help to give off a white heat, radiating a warmth like that of overheated metal, hot to the touch, and almost radioactive in its ability to sizzle and burn the flesh. This opening sits in contrast to Black Swan’s cooler discography, and it’s a welcome change. Since the opening is entitled ‘Birth’, the warm apricot hues could represent the comfort of the womb, becoming the first chapter as the tones emerge into the world. The drone-work is similar, which is a good thing, and the music is just as refined as it ever was. Punctured fragments of sound later decay in front of the listener, adding a dull bronze and a nostalgic side to the music, a classic film noir in which all the stars have now moved on. The reels continue to revolve, though, pouring out a selection of sober melodies with long tails of delay and the trailing echoes of a memory growing fainter by the day.

If jazz is a body, then Edward Vesala is its ligament of fascination. Flexing and creaking with the passage of emotion into life and life into silence, the drummer’s disarming soundscapes never fail to intrigue, to say something potent and new. In spite of its tongue-in-cheek title, Ode To The Death Of Jazz is, strangely, one of his more uplifting exercises in sonic production.
The title of “Sylvan Swizzle” sets the bar in both tone and sentiment, opening in a smooth and winding road of flute, woodwinds, percussion, and harp. Textural possibilities bear the fruit of the ensemble’s explorations in somatic sound: an exercise in pathos, to be sure, if only through the eyes of something not human. The space here is dark yet flecked with iridescence, sporting yet bogged down by infirmity, vivacious yet weak in the eyes…

Finnish Neofolk / Ambient project NEST by Aslak Tolonen and Timo Saxell, well known far beyond the mentioned genres. Every connoisseur Agalloch, remembers beautiful split Agalloch / Nest from 2004 , which is literally killing its brevity, fans Skepticism likely heard interpretation «The Gallant Crow» from Nest. Aslak Tolonen had to take part in groups Shape Of Despair, Todesbonden, Tevana3, Tuonenpolku, Where Rivers End, and of course Syven, new main project by Aslak Tolonen.

The Book of Genesis tells us that in the beginning was the Word and that the Word was sound. But what if it was music? What if God, in contemplating the creation of Creation, sang being into being? If so, it might have sounded something like the Sacred Songs of Valentin Silvestrov. In this seventh ECM album devoted to the Ukrainian composer’s music, we thusly encounter a sense of space unique to the Russian liturgy: the more the voices unify in movement, the more they lift from one another like temporary tattoos, leaving behind mirror images that wash away with baptism into infinite oneness with the Holy Spirit. Sin as sun. Firmament as fundament.