Review:

on 2011-05-29 CharlesMartel Said:

In my time scouring websites I have found some wonderful music. I have had some great recommendations and I have discovered new genres and new artists I never would have found otherwise. In spite of the fact that I usually download and check out new music suggested before I buy it, I still occasionally buy on impulse, in spite of my better judgement and sometimes bitter experience. This album, picked up during the course of a heavy drinking session at a Nerdcon in Manchester, was very much bought on spec. To be honest, I have not had much success with such purchases.

"The Sound of Summer Silence" was therefore a truly impulsive buy. I saw it marked up as Danish shoegaze and thought, on the strength of that, it was worth a pot. Eighteen year-old Dane, Daniel Porcelli, better known as po, has released this album on San Francisco-based experimental label, Dynamophone, who have signed him up and promoted this album as something unique from a talented individual. Whatever the merits of that idea, and Porcelli's work as a whole, I find it difficult to review something which, essentially, I don't like. I cannot pass judgement on it in the way I would with many other albums simply because I have no frame of reference within which I can compare it with other albums of the genre. Try as I might not to be negative, there is little I can do but rate this with a heavy heart.

Porcelli's compositions are created without plug-ins and software generated synthesiser sounds. The basis of the instrumentation is acoustic sounds which include violins, harps, organs, acoustic guitars and digitised vocals. Whether you like the result ultimately depends on whether you are drawn to this type of music. And in all honesty I am not. Whether I can find a place for it is another matter. Maybe it has a place as relaxation music  something to be listened to when you need to unwind. Maybe it sounds better on a warm summers evening, outside, far away from the intrusive sounds of the modern world. Maybe, I have no real place for it.

Soothing sounds may be one thing, but digitised hissing and static crackling just do nothing for me. Using such crackling as an off-time beat becomes distracting very quickly. While the opener, "At Last", is probably the best track on the album, the sameness and lack of coherence of the offering contained within the album quickly wears me down. In the end, the album just becomes one long drone of increasingly irritating noise which I can listen to only for as long as I can find something else to occupy me. When the sound is all that there is, boredom quickly sets in.

I am not going to slag this off for the sake of it. That would not benefit the reader who may be looking for an honest appraisal of a musical form which appeals. The rating I give is more an indicator that this is not for me (or that I am not for it). Whether someone who appreciates this better than I will have anything more positive to say is for others. Suffice it to say that I cannot see myself buying any more of Porcelli's work, or any more of this particular experimental style. Call me old-fashioned, but I do like a melody, and there are precious few of those within the covers of this album.
Rating: 3/10