Son of Clay: The Bird You Never Were
Komplott

Andreas Bertilsson's second Son of Clay release The Bird You Never Were merges acoustic sounds, field-recordings, and digitally processed material into tactile and unusual abstractions. By normal CD standards, the thirty-six minute recording is short yet somehow feels just about right for its nine poetical settings. The album's minimal evocations eschew melody (or at least melody as conventionally recognized) for subtly shifting and metamorphosing fields of sound that retain interest despite that melodic absence. Amidst soft organ tones, percolating percussive burble, and tiny pockets of clipped phasings, the plummeting, sandpapery tones in the opener “Bring Me Water or Bread” recall Oval, but that's the singular occasion where Son of Clay's sound suggests a similarity to another's; elsewhere the sound is uniquely his. One of the album's defining characteristics is its recurring embrace of the pause or rest; the Berlin-based Bertilsson shows an admirable sensitivity to the power that comes from suspending sound, even if for only brief moments. In some pieces, only the merest trace of an instrument is present, and consequently the sounds that are present assume enhanced meaning and significance. Close listening reveals a richly detailed array in “The Colour Scheme,” for instance, as field elements of distant voices, bird caws, and snuffling animal noises are joined by intermittent stutters of harmonium-styled organ tones. In many cases, song titles alone suggest the music's earthy roots: “Forest On Paper,” “The Rook,” “First Snowflakes, Then Winter Fall.” Other pieces weave electronically processed natural sounds (footsteps, rustlings, wind chimes, rainfall) and acoustic instruments (organ, guitar, clarinet, harmonium, string plucks) into engrossing soundscapes that mutate like delicate organisms. Call it what you will—musique concrète, electro-acoustic—whatever the name, the album's atmospheric pieces determinedly pursue their idiosyncratic trajectories. Admittedly, Son of Clay's aural haiku won't appeal universally: some listeners will find The Bird You Never Were's abstractions a little too unstructured and meandering for their liking; others will find that same looseness a key aspect of the music's charm.

April 2005