Stephen Wilkinson returns with his third album as Bibio. Wilkinson has done it again, delivering some of the best acoustic guitar songs he has ever produced, backed with occasional field noise, other instruments, and subtle electronic effects. Nothing will sound out of place if you heard his previous album Hand Cranked (my #1 album of 2006), but there's more variety in the style of guitar and songs on this album. The vocal style he debuted on Hand Cranked's "Aberriw" (now being used for the new Friday the 13th trailer) returns here on more tracks and sounds fantastic. Wilkinson seems to have a way to take a simple guitar melody and breathe it full of life by increasing the intensity of the rhythm or adding subtle sounds around it. It's almost as if he re-creates the sound of nature around his music. Take away the hip-hop beats from Boards of Canada and double up on the guitar from tracks like "Chromakey Dreamcoat" and you're approaching the Bibio sound. If I had one criticism of the album it would be that the sequencing seems a little disjointed, especially at the beginning. By the time you hit album highlight "The Ephemeral Bluebell" the albums gets to autopilot and is a near perfect experience. Another classic from Bibio and the first great album of 2009.

Style: Folk, Indielectronic

RIYL: John Fahey, Boards of Canada

Buy from Amazon  Official Site

Download: Flesh Rots, Pip Sown

Tags See All Tags

2009  Bibio  Boards of Canada  Folk  Indielectronic  John Fahey  Mush  Vignetting The Compost  onecaseman 

Comments (2)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

Add Comment