Blind Summit _ Held On The Weight Of Whispers_ Sin019 [ALBUM REVIEW]
If you like Blind Summit, it’s an absolute given that you appreciate how gorgeous and emotive his music can be. The rough textures of this debut album are carefully wrapped in drama and smoothed off by beautiful tension.
You may already know that it Held On The Weight Of Whispers written during a period of deep personal loss. When I learned this, I (rightly or wrongly) began to pick out the various hints of chaos, life, death, loss, joy, suffering and denial in the music. It’s a great album and impossible not to get involved.
You can read the full interview with Blind Summit (and get the exclusive free track) HERE.
Held on the Weight of Whispers (Conception) with its dreamy, soaring melody and music box chimes, christens the start of the journey. The next few tracks (Reluctant Sunsets, Harmonious Confusions) are influenced by Detroit and electronica and are driven by soul – not kicks. As you will soon discover, the focus of this album reaches beyond the dancefloor.
Fusing a broken techno rhythm to a soaring orchestral arrangement, Ataraxia and the Chaos prepares the you for the gigantic and magnificent Magellanic Clouds. This is such an awesome piece of music. The word epic will never be sufficient for it. The way the strings swell here are beyond words. Supported by the ambient Blissful Oblivion, this section of the album is simply breathtaking.
The Wayfarers Lament and Nothing Left but Pain are musically dark and brooding. These tracks signal the beginning of the end. Afterwards, another favourite arrives – Opaque Conclusions, which is based around a wonderfully complex kick pattern. I really love those plucked strings and shifting backgrounds. mesmerising.
Given the backdrop to this album, I’m relieved that there is optimism to be found in the fabric of these tracks. This can often be found in the tone of the Roland piano, which provides a welcome contrast on more than one occasion. You can hear it in the final melancholy of Held on the Weight of Whispers (ad mortem).
It may be somewhat pretentious of me to suggest that healing can be hastened by channelling unresolved emotion though music; but it’s impossible to think otherwise when the music is just as superb as this.
Held On The Weight Of Whispers is released by Singularity Recordings on 25th June, exclusively with Juno. Available worldwide and on all other online stores, including Bandcamp 2 weeks afterwards.
Chris has also kindly made a free track to go along with this Album review.
You can DL it from Bandcamp: http://blindsummit.bandcamp.com/track/stone-cutters-ghosts
http://music.singularityrecordings.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/blind.summit.1
http://soundcloud.com/blind-summit
http://blindsummit.bandcamp.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/BLINDSUMMIT909
Music production and history are my biggest passions in life.
Though people often say that Techno is faceless and should be about the music blah, blah, blah.. I believe in the need to document the people and stories behind it. Techno is a very small world in reality and I think it needs a proper resource.
I hope that everyone who is interested in Techno finds this blog accessible in terms of the way that it is written. I personally prefer to hear the artists voice as loud as the music and never enjoy synopsised and pasteurised versions of old conversation; the sort that's peppered with the occasional quote here and there.
