Conversations About the Light "Memories Out of Context" CD
[Audio Savant]
And so begins the debut full-length from this promising relative newcomer to the experimental noise scene: After an unexpectedly quick shift from surging electronic sounds to fluid ambience in "Pondering Ghosts", "A Broken Lamp, Yellow Toys and Driftwood" starts out very similarly with a longer burst of raw noise that subsides to a strange presentation of chewed up ambient sounds. On one hand it's interesting because it literally sounds like a tape that's being eaten as you're listening to it, so you start to question whether or not what you're hearing is intentional or a defect, but on the other hand that question starts to become a little irritating for a few minutes, until things finally start to level out and become a little more substantial and fluid in delivery as bursts of harsh noise cut in over the increasingly minimized ambience. Worth mentioning at this point is that this track runs more than 17 minutes, so there's plenty of time for things to develop and move around, which they do, as the back and forth shifts continue, but in altered form. My personal tastes don't quite appreciate the quickness of the contrasts, as far as the louder swells sort of "clicking" into place as if pasted in at random, and I'd much prefer it were one or the other approach left to their own devices as each stands well on its own, but... I can live with it. Also curiously titled, "The Emotion of Cobwebs and Cracks in the Paint" is an easier listen, clocking in at eight minutes with rising and falling hums flowing back and forth across shuffling undercurrents and little twists and turns in the distance. A more standard fare dark ambient track? Perhaps. But there's a lot of feeling here, and to date this has been the niche that has impressed me the most within the larger umbrella of Conversations About the Light's work. The faint melodic rings and ethereal additives make this a very nice, billowy selection. I love how it transitions into very quiet, distant shreds of abrasive noise towards the closing moments as well. Then it's another whopper, the 16-and-a-half-minute "Sometime in May", often spending several minutes at a near silent lull of incredibly faint ambience that eventually starts to give way to a nice sizzle of distortion/feedback that's tactfully placed in the mix so as not to destroy the gradual build or consideration for continuity. Another 29-second burst similar to the first minute or so of the disc, "Clumsily Picking Up Memories" completes the bookends surrounding the larger tracks for a curious close. Probably the most significant gripe that I have about this release is the packaging, however. The CD-R looks to have been professionally replicated, but the black and white packaging looks like it was either color xeroxed or printed from a relatively high quality printer. However, a lot of the text is sort of pixilated and hard to read, and the general quality of the packaging is definitely lacking in my opinion. I'm not a particular fan of "A Broken Lamp, Yellow Toys and Driftwood" as a whole, so it's unfortunate that it takes up such a large chunk of the disc, and I don't feel that the packaging properly represents the level of quality that most of the music possesses, but I'm still a fan that looks forward to hearing more, as Conversations About the Light is without a doubt one of the more promising projects in the scene right now steadily making a name for itself. Not bad, simply not all that it could be in my opinion. (6/10)
Running time - 42:52, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: The Emotion of Cobwebs and Cracks in the Paint, Sometime in May]
Audio Savant - http://www.audiosavant.com

This review has been displayed 1490 times.