It’s true… I wait until the sun goes down to listen to the second release from Black Swan. I listen to the music the way others watch the movies. Lounging comfortably in my chair, positioned perfectly between my studio monitors, their cones facing towards me, slightly tilted, completing an imaginary triangle. A glass of wine in my hand… my eyes slightly closed… I let the sound envelope and surround me in preparation for a film. Occasionally I drift away, as images begin to swirl behind my eyelids, and this is when the music becomes alive, telling the story through its long growing fingers, gesturing me to follow its essence around the corner, down the corridor from whence the voice comes.
On the last step of the staircase, I hear the sounds of a ballroom, drowned in the muffled buzzing of a nearby electric transformer. I know that the deeper I go, the harder it will be to come back, but there’s no turning back now… I’ve bridged The Quiet Divide… Somewhere between “Black Eulogy” and “Angel Eyes” I have become aware of the dream. Perhaps the sounds of the Victrola triggered my lucid awakening, and all I can do now, is observe. Here’s what I see: walls made from black velvet inhale air full of soot; pipes covered with mildew wheeze, rumble, and hiss; thick putrid fog glows in sweltering heat… there’s no one here… I’m wholly alone…
Awash with chilling ambiance, found sounds and haunting samples, The Quiet Divide reins in the phantasmagoria, examining the blurred in-between, the darkness that lies at the divide. […] Upon surfacing from the muck and grime, the resulting work is disquieting and poignant, exposing the listener to the inner workings of the desolate in hope that they will never have to plunge themselves into it.
I don’t remember waking up. I don’t remember returning. In fact, I highly doubt I’ve come back at all. This album has that effect. Subtitled “A Symphony of Misery and Sorrow“, Black Swan’s follow up to the 2010 debut, In 8 Movements, is even darker then before. I remember falling in love with the predecessor, but the subsequent installment in “drones for bleeding hearts” is soul-wrenching. And I mean that with the highest possible praise. Co-released by what appears the artist’s own label, Ethereal Symphony, The Quiet Divide is an amazing addition to Experimedia‘s catalog. We now have two full-lengths from this elusive artist… the rest is a mystery…
