Album Details

• Artist: 3 Seconds Of Air
• Album: The Flight Of Song
• Label: Tonefloat
• Year of Release: 2009
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2009-07-27

Steven Wilson sure does love his space. 3 Seconds of Air is a project that unwinds slowly developing tunes, if they develop at all, which navigate through the whims of air and silence. "the flight of song" is as literal a title as you are likely to hear.

The four songs can be read as one long piece, with "dead poets sing the sunless land" representing the onset of the journey, in baby steps of quite, brooding drone. "the heart disintegrates wearing disposable masks of angels" quickens the pace, though here disintegration means vanishing, not destruction. The pulse returns more insistent on the final two tracks, with the finale, "ghosts stream the harmony of delight," more or less revisiting all the tonal highs and lows of this battle against emptiness. But there is no real resolution; you are left with the feeling that this is almost a kind of eternal piece, and is somewhere out there still making sounds in its wandering.

3 Seconds of Air seems to be a deliberate project to make silence known and sound present in circumstances beyond its control. "the flight of song" momentarily wins it battle with the natural current.

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