A bleary miasma of sonar pulses and fine particles of
sound dust, Periphery unfolds in dense, rolling
surges; a steamy mass that roars ever higher, reaches
exultant peaks and discharges against a bed of static
pebbles and delicate films of ambient shimmer. Submerged
in heavily reverberant acoustics, electronics lay like
barnacles encrusted to the plodding piano and hypnotic
organ shards, slowly eroding their pristine surfaces
and otherwise chewing them into a rusted, gurgling wet
wreck of ominous oscillations and decaying tones.
Serving as Bissonnette's first full-length effort, the
album’s drastic alteration and reorganization
of piano and orchestral based materials impresses for
a great many reasons, not least of which are their ability
to evoke a romantic underwater aura, a mood dotted throughout
Gavin Bryar’s The Sinking Of The Titanic.
It would be simple enough for Bissonnette to dwell in
the abstraction of such an approach, but compositions
are pregnant with subtle distinctions that gradually
come to the fore through careful listening. The astringent,
moaning fluxions of sound that inhabit Substrata
sound as though they are booming through caves and catacombs,
the crackling textures and muffled thuds echo at different
timbres and bounce off one another in a circular fashion,
as sympathetic strings lull one into a defenceless,
dreamy state. Bissonnette's arrangements are not meant
to dazzle, but are extremely effective in evoking state
of frailty and decay. Travelling Decay, the
album’s most active piece, is built upon bowed
and plucked string instruments that are gradually caught
in the undercurrents of a processors crisscrossing throb.
The work’s somber, solitary mood is furthered
on the closer, Pellucidity, as steady pulsations
of electronic tones harmonize with elongated organ chords
that shift from hypnotic cyclical patterns to seasick
squawking, and are accentuated by a glistening vibrato
of tape-manipulated piano. With scrupulous craft and
troubled sense of tonality, sporadically punctuated
by fleetingly recognizable events, Periphery
is permeated by a sense of unknown, impending doom;
it is this ability to awaken such raw, catastrophic
emotions through such subtle arrangements that gives
reason to look upon Bissonnette as an artist of much
promise.
Max Schaefer
4.2/5 |
