Silent Vigils: Lost Rites
Home Normal

Operating under the Silent Vigils name, James Murray and Stijn Hüwels present a not quite so silent follow-up to their well-received inaugural effort, 2018's Fieldem. The plaintive tone of that first Home Normal set remains in place on the new one, the material again reflecting the artful command of sound design and moodsculpting for which both are known, individually and as collaborators.

If I say the result meets with expectations, it's not meant negatively: one expects that a recording by these two will be a nuanced exercise in ambient soundscaping that will eschew vulgarity and excess for elegance and understatement; in that regard, Lost Rites is very much in line with what one expects from Home Normal, too. Though piano, guitar, and electronics would appear to be some of the sound sources used to produce the recording, no instrument details are listed in the credits, the pair apparently content to simply list themselves as the creators of the material. Such restraint is consistent with their presumed personas, but it also more importantly emphasizes that what matters to them is the musical outcome, not the ingredients used to generate it.

During the opening “Stolen Fire,” gauzy piano sprinklings and guitar shadings reverberate from the center of a thick granular field of static and hiss, the whole flickering, swirling, and stuttering like some restlessly shapeshifting behemoth advancing across the skies in slow motion. Animation is largely suspended for the subsequent title track, a swelling meditation whose blend of gamelan accents and dark ambient gestures leaves room for ominous guitar-laced atmospherics. With the advent of the central track, “Elysse,” the darkness lifts as the first glimmerings of hope are suggested by a quietly uplifting guitar figure and pulsating washes. Sounds of the ocean emerge forcefully during “Recursion” as if to suggest the nearness of the open sea and its impending promise of liberation, after which “Shoreless” appears, the serene character of its softly glimmering surge bringing resolution to the recording.

August 2019