Sileni – Long Forgotten Bowers (Digital Album – Eight Tower Records)
Genre/Influences: Dark-ambient, dark-cinematographic.
Background/Info: Sileni is a Portuguese solo-project driven by Valter Abreu. After two previously released albums he joined hands with Eight Tower Records for an album Influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Andrej Tarkovskij.
Content: The work takes off with overwhelming, dark-ambient sound waves. There’s a perfect twist between ambient and pure cinematographic passages. A few spoken samplings are sometimes accentuating the music. There also is something sensitive running through the work, which is characterized by a kind of violin sounds. The album features 9 cuts, which are crescendo reaching their ultimate state of angst at “Dimmed Memory”.
+ + + : This album has something fascinating because of its diversity. Valter Abreu is masterfully mixing dark-ambient and cinematic atmospheres together. The work is getting a strong visual appeal accentuated by visions of terror and also abandoned places. It’s a nihilistic universe with emotional passages. The composition reveals a great sonic canvas where field recordings (and/or samplings) have been meticulously merged with the global atmosphere.
– – – : After “Dimmed Memory”, which is a truly climax the few cuts left can’t create a similar feeling of fright and loneliness.
Conclusion: This work let me discover an interesting project, which is naturally switching ambient and cinematographic music together.
Best songs: “Dimmed Memory”, “Malformed Creation”, “Surpassed”.
Rate: (7½).
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