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Robert Scott Thompson This is one of the first albums well known American ambient/electronic composer, Robert Scott Thompson has recorded outside the confines of his own label. It is on the superb Canadian label, Oasis Productions daughter label, Mirage. The Silent Shore is a dark evocative soundscape similar in feel and texture to the mid-eighties ambient works of Steve Roach and Kit Watkins. Throughout the album, Thompson's brilliance is in his ability to utilise otherwise mundane and ordinary sounds and transform them into an amalgam of interesting musical tracks. 'DreamSong' opens and sets the musical scene: it is as if we were on a hill listening to the sounds of a distant ocean and, over a bed of hollow drones, faint melodies and disembodied timbres float by. The manipulation of the sounds and the ambience which creates much of the movement is a basis for all the tracks, and underlines the sources of the albums main thematic structures. This is a superb electroacoustic isolationist album: the fifteen tracks individually demonstrate Thompson's control of the techniques and together they form a coherent and significant musical composition: while the method of each is unique. The album has a gentle, almost floating atmosphere which perfectly fits the title and cover art. information: Review by Ben Kettlewell |
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