Review:'Knox , Richard, & Frederic D Oberland' 'The Rustle of the Stars'
- Album: 'The Rustle of the Stars'
- Label: 'Gizeh'
- Genre: 'Ambient'
- Release Date: '7th November 2011'- Catalogue No: 'GZH36'
Our Rating:
With their latest release, a collaboration between label boss Richard Knox and Frederic D Oberland, Gizeh continue to demonstrate an unparalleled capacity to release music of elegance and beauty. In many ways, it shouldn't exactly come as a surprise. As one half of Glissando, Knox already has a track record of producing music that's richly layered and deeply haunting, while Oberland, a member of label signings FareWell Poetry has also established himself as a master of the form - and 'The Rustle of the Stars' continues very much in the vein of the two, being understatedly dramatic, and dramatically understated.
Strings pour long, slow notes and swell, shifting imperceptibly to drones and sombre, brooding ambience, giving way to gently picked guitar on the melancholic reverie of 'Drawing Lines to the End of the World', while 'Sea of Bones' crackles and pops eerily as sonorous strings and drones slowly swill, lap and eddy on the shores of the listener's senses. The music is as bleak as the titles suggest - 'The Wreck of Hope' for example - and is evocative of erosion and slow decay, the gradual destruction of a golden age. However, there's not a trace of anger, and only a faint trace of despair as the intricately detailed soundscapes contrive to invoke fleeting recollections and simply a wan sadness, making for an album that’s elegiac, achingly beautiful and every bit as stark as the polar landscape that inspired the recording.
