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CD Feature/ Avsky: "Silent Decay"

  Tobias

Music is almost by definition an art which does not want to get to the point. As a musician, one often finds the greatest solace writing works, which remain  private, secluded and unintelligable for the outside world. Avsky, too, is not a man of easy concepts and an album like “Silent Decay” definitely draws a lot of strength from the fact that its message remains unspoken. And yet, behind the veil, one can sense a programmatic component stirring, breathing asthmatically and whispering: Solitude is a dangerous drug.  

That in itself may not be a new revelation. The Dark Ambient revolution, which has conquered fresh territory over the last decade, has always drawn inspiration from characters out of touch with society – the image of the loner and the dreamer is more alive here than anywhere else. And yet, the isolationist movement within the genre has taken this to new heights. Loneliness is now now no longer just the motivation to create, it has become the main object of the artistic eye. “Silent Decay” can therefore be listened to both with uninitiated ears or seen as a description of a solitary episode, taking its audience from the first shock waves of panic and an impending depression to the destruction of the ego and its subsequent disintegration.

Again and again, the individual is faced with short stretches of reality, carrying titles such as “Low on Life” or “Perpetual Cycle” and representing measured moments of tangibility amidst an ocean of floating shapes and outlines. While half of the tracks are basically stark, industrial wastelands, the longer, more open works represent the real gravitational centre of the opus, just like the imaginary life of the protagonist of Dostojewski’s “White Nights” is always more intense and enchanting than the grim physical world outside. “Mutual Assured Depression” and “Dying Sun” are essentially immobile, stagnating ethereal drones, all frequency and harmony and the occasional transient melody, but their unresolved beauty lingers over the music like tarnish inevatibly forms on silver over the course of ages. It is a nagging beauty, eating itself into the fabric and taking control, rather than well-proportioned aesthetics in the classical sense and more than once, it shines from underneath a cloaking layer of elegant feedback and effects. The swooning harmonies of “Silver Night”, for one, are almost swallowed by the ocean of noise engulfing it. 

It is a serious issue, but Avsky doesn’t treat it as one. He purposely upholds the romantic nature of his topic, presenting a soundscape that is more inviting and open to dream time travels than to saturnine philosophical reflections. In that sense, he deserves to be heard by far more than just the core public of the Dark Ambient scene. This debut album, full of allusions, metaphors and multiinterpretable textures, is more than just a tribute to his influences after all  -and makes not getting to the point an art again. 

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Avsky on MySpace
Homepage: Reverse Alignment Records at MySpace