Album Review: Josh Mason/Gareth Flowers- Silent Period

Last spring, when I saw stuck in a “new release rut” thanks to all the boring, cool dad rock that was released at the beginning of 2014, a post on Justin Snow’s Anti-Gravity Bunny website helped bail me out—it was about an ambient/experimental album from Josh Mason and David Andree entitled Call, Response. I came onto it about two months after its release, but was taken with its restrained atmospherics almost instantly.

Cut to December, and I see that one of the gawds, Josh Mason, was on Twitter, looking for bloggers to write up reviews of his latest endeavor: a collaboration with Gareth Flowers called Silent Period.

There’s a pretty specific concept, or idea, or whatever behind Silent Period, so I’ll let the press materials Mason sent to me do the talking there—

Born from a short story written by Mason in 2009, Silent Period follows the narrative arc of a long night/early morning following an unknown event that has led an enigmatic main character into self-exile. The four movements of the album mirror four different and specific states of being related to the protagonist’s experience and expectation: uneasiness, confusion, fear and relief. Flower’s trumpet work emerges from darkness like steam from the grates of New York City streets, setting a mood akin to that of high contrast noir films. Mason spins multiple plates in the background as electronics crash, throb and pulse—guitars float and shimmer; all coalescing into a wall of inner turmoil and nervous behavior that simply cannot be shaken. Late night listening is recommended.

See. Pretty heavy stuff.

Mason and Flowers aren’t fucking around either—and they get right down to business on the opening piece, “The Awareness.” Flowers’ trumpet casts ominous, eerie shadows, while Mason’s gadget fuckery bubbles just under the surface, creating an awful sense of tension and dread.

Late night listening indeed—if you want to have a bunch of nightmares.

That dread continues on into “The Confusion,” which plays out like a slow warped tape loop. Flowers’ trumpet is distended and mournful, overlapping with itself, as a sound collage of ringing, beeping, and white noise falls apart and rebuilds itself in the background. Needless to say, “The Confusion” is a very apt title for something so incredibly jarring to the senses.

The second half to Silent Period begins with “The Fear,” a slow gestating piece that creeps along deliberately—the pacing structured to maximize the tension. Opening with Mason’s off-kilter guitar plucking and static coming from an amp, Flowers’ trumpet eventually arrives a few minutes in, and then eventually leads the “The Fear” into an even darker direction.

With an ambient/experimental/drone/jazz release like this, it being “listener friendly” is the farthest thing from the mind of the creators. However, the most palatable, and most accessible, and most successful piece arrives last in the form of “The Resignation.” Delicate and somber, Mason’s restrained, thoughtful guitar work and Flowers’ smooth horn playing are mixed with the sound of a steady rain. Words like “cinematic” and “film noir” easily come to mind, as does the “like tears in the rain” scene from Blade Runner. “The Resignation” ends quietly, and unassumingly, retreating away into the night, as if to say that either the underlying dread from the unnamed protagonist that inspired these songs has come and gone, or that there is no escaping it.

Much like the “acquired taste” and overall impending sense of doom that I found on last year’s avant-jazz DNMF, Silent Period isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not the kind of album to put on during a sunny afternoon, or to listen to in the car—unless you want to convince yourself someone is following you as you drive. It’s a psychological journey put into music—and maybe late night listening is recommended after all.

Silent Period is out on January 19th, on limited edition vinyl, via Sunshine LTD.