Parisian experimentalist Cécile Schott drops the samples and looping of her earlier work for Les Ondes Silencieuses, her third album as Colleen. The sounds here are all acoustic, mostly recorded in real time with just a few overdubs. And although Schott's recording techniques and set of instruments (classical guitar, clarinet, crystal glass, Baroque-era spinet and viola da gamba) may be new, the mesmerizing effect of her music is much the same. These nine instrumentals act as gauzy mood pieces, their spacious rhythms and thick chords drawing us in to an ancient, almost liturgical headspace. The harpsichord-like spinet builds a palace of icy abstractions on "Le Labyrinthe"; the overlapping waves of viola da gamba on "Blue Sands" feel like shifting patterns of light as the sun shines through the branches of a tree. Les Ondes Silencieuses might evoke colors, memories, longings. It will evoke something.
***
Artist: www.colleenplays.org
Label: www.theleaflabel.com
