It‘s a nice way to put it as Michael Dervan from The Irish Times did writing that „Silvestrov seems to be inexorably drawn to the aching losses of the past, and in thrall to the lingering traces of favourite musical shapes and harmonies.“ How apparently simple an album can be while at the same time keeping its magic and mysteries up in the air of the studio space. Lugano studio space, this time.
Let‘s mix up genres and think of other albums that have a comparable approach to sound and silence. The different „Selbstporträt“-albums by Roedelius come to mind, as come, apart from Brian Eno’s ambient classics, Steve Tibbetts‘s „Northern Song“, David Darling‘s „Cello“, Björn Meyer’s „Provenance“, Fripp and Eno‘s „Evening Star“ (side one). Or John Cage‘s favourite shakuhachi record.
I really wanted to hear the album of Anja Lechner and her partner in the two-cello pieces, when Gregs wrote his short notes on the album, and I stumbled on the name Silvestrov. Different to our jukebox trader in the far north, I only have one of his albums, „Stille Lieder“ – that title always rings a bell of ancient haikus, dark clearings, and, sorry for the cliche, a view to the horizon at sea. And, of course, I have a vivid memory of the fantastic (quiet concert) of Lechner and Couturier in Jameos De Agua.
So take your time strolling through the record collection of your mind coming up with musics where nothing really happens on the surface. It takes some time into „Hieroglyphen der Nacht“ till a kind of simple melody turns up. So much is absorbed by pale shadows, night skies, desolate harbours, immersed by a world of grey. Yes, indeed, and closing with Michael Dervan, „they sound fully attuned to the world of these diary-like, gentle obsessions.“