With the current trend in electronic music leaning towards the less cohesive IDM-centred sounds, there have been an influx of bands that have encompassed the ideals behind such a movement without alienating the listener. In the past, artists such as Bonobo and Plaid have managed to appeal to their intended audience with an overtly listener-friendly breed of instrumental niceness. Add into the equation the massively popular compositions of so-called ‘trip-hop’ bands like Massive Attack and Morcheeba (among many others), and we have a veritable mixing bowl of electronic musical styles blending together to create what we have today.
Out of this transformation have sprung a whole host of acts, some successful, some less so. By having this intense lineage of influences, artists have had to diversify again and again to achieve something that retains some form of structure and intent without sticking to the same old formula employed throughout the years.
Mixing influences from hip-hop to electronica to breakbeat, with a whole host of other nuances thrown in for good measure, Silent77 could so easily have been an incomprehensible car-crash of an album. Good job then, that the composer is skilled enough to have blended together all of these influences with enough care and attention to detail to avoid the common trap of something being either far too diverse (messy) or far too similar to other examples (blatant copy). Within about 30 seconds of opener "2Hour/Seahorses" it becomes clear that there is an amazing amount of both melody and rhythm hidden amongst the glitches and breaks. Whilst in parts, this offering is indeed reminiscent of the pronounced polyphony of the much heralded Program Music I by TSB favourite Kashiwa Daisuke, it strays away from the trademark melody construction employed by Daisuke, instead opting for a far less baffling progression. By beginning with a firm foundation of subtle beats, and often vocal samples, there is not quite as much room for awe-inspiring segued cadences, but the end effect is entirely similar. Towards the middle of the album, tracks like "1977ugly/2004idealcopy" really showcase the depth of emotion inherent in these compositions, flitting from irregular drums and more regular clicks and whirrs to a sublime, almost angelic cantabile, all in the space of four minutes.
Continue through the album however, and things begin to get somewhat darker. By subtly switching the emphasis from the drums which dominated the first half of the album, to the much less comforting synths and noises, Geskia manages to unsettle the listener whilst still retaining a perfect sense of melody and depth. Pieces like "Fall Fall" really highlight the similarities to the aforementioned trip-hop bands by utilising traditional drone elements and chord progressions juxtaposed with the less prominent sampled break-beats.
What Geskia has managed to do is create an incredibly accomplished offering. While using stereotyped aspects from a huge range of genre subsets, ranging from trance to folk, there is never any doubt that the pieces fit together perfectly. What would be more impressive would be to build the divine crescendos littering Silent77 from nothing. To start at the ground and work up. Then again, pleasing a whole range of people, and fans of many different genres is never going to be possible without compromising some of the more complicated compositional techniques from any one genre. As a standout offering straddling a huge range of genres, Silent77 is incredible, and as an album in its own right, it isn’t much less than that either.
-Barry Smethurst