Reviews

Aural Aggravation

The wonderful thing about stories is that there are no rules – no rules about what they should contain, how they should be told, or whose perspective they should be told from. Even the standard expectations of ‘beginning-middle-end’ are an artifice, and for any convention, there are infinite ways to deviate from it. Linearity is a construct which assists in rendering events more easily navigable, but sometimes, disrupting that linearity is an integral part of the unravelling of events. Stories – be they true or fictional – are often a way of making sense of the world through the construct of narrative. Sometimes, we forge our own narratives from fragments of confusion in order to orientate ourselves, and as such, stories are instinctive and integral to our understanding the world and our place in it.

The fourth album from Quiet Noise, the vehicle of West Wales based producer Adam Wilkinson, is, like so many albums from the last year, the product of lockdown. ‘In a studio that overlooks a valley where the air breathes a lone craftsman sets to work mapping his experience through experiment,’ his biography tells us. Does this mean that Wilkinson was perhaps better equipped than many to deal with the last fourteen months, given his solitary nature? Not necessarily, but while many lockdown musical projects, which have been steeped in an air of claustrophobia, anxiety, and tension, Story Machine is a breath of fresh air that conveys aa sense of – if joy is too strong, then appreciation – of life. Perhaps it’s the fact that after four years being busy producing music for singers and film makers, Wilkinson finally has time out to return to the world of Quiet Noise to explore his own avenues of creativity. Adam explains the limitations that determined the album’s formation, recounting, “stuck at home, sitting with my wife and children while they worked from home, I set myself the challenge of creating pieces using only equipment that could fit in my space on the living room table. Motivated by my game and pleasantly surprised by what I could achieve.”

For the most part, Story Machine is an overtly electronic set that comfortably incorporates a diverse range of styles from across the spectrum – and a large portion is fresh and accessible, danceable even. The range is such that the individual pieces feel as though they each tell their own stories – but then again, taken as a while, perhaps they’re chapters of a longer story that is the album as a whole.

With bold, surging orchestral strikes and tension-building strings, ‘Grand Entrance’ is appropriately titled. ‘Climbing Trees’ is altogether more light-spirited, with a buoyant electro beat and birds twittering – although it suddenly explodes in a surge of light that’s a veritable epiphany. ‘Murmurations’ brings a very different vibe, with a straight-up dance groove. The beats are bold and uptempo, and while the top synths are quite soft and subtle, bringing an expansive but chilled later to the sound, the bass is bouncy and urgent.

In among it all, there are some moments where vast expanses of sound burst seemingly from nowhere, radiating an almost prog-rock grandiosity. These bursts of extravagance are a shade audacious, but somehow, they work. Above all, Story Machine is an uplifting experience, and in the face of so much bleakness, it’s one that’s most welcome.

Link to original article > HERE

Silence and Sound

La pandémie, on n’arrête pas de le vivre, nous a fait changer nos habitudes. Pour son nouvel album Story Machine, le gallois Adam Wilkinson aka Quiet Noise, s’est retrouvé comme nous tous, enfermé chez lui avec sa femme est ses enfants. Pas facile de faire du son dans ces conditions.

Il s’est donc décidé à produire dans son salon, se contentant juste de quelques machines. La limitation donnant des ailes, Quiet Noise nous offre un voyage plein de positivité et d’humeurs changeantes, d’horizons verdoyants et d’atmosphères chaleureuses, où la danse s’introduit parfois en poussant les meubles.

Tous en breaks et en mouvements, en cordes aériennes subtilement introduites et en enluminures sophistiquées, le producteur multiplie les pistes pour un résultat euphorisant.

Gorgé d’énergies souterraines et d’explosions grandiloquentes canalisées, Story Machine n’est pas sans évoquer certains albums sortis sur Warp (on pense à Plaid), tout en restant étonnamment accessible, où ambient, electronica, downtempo flirtent avec l’aventure et les grands espaces. Superbe.

Link to original article HERE

OEM Radio

Quiet Noise is back on Audiobulb Records with a 10 song masterpiece of noise and sounds mashed up and arranged into rhythms and melodies that he calls Story Machine. Check out in particular two tracks, Children’s Toys and View From the Top which have a Jon Hopkins edge to them.

Link to original article HERE

Buzzmag

Adam Wilkinson lives in the Pembrokeshire village of Boncath, and without having visited I’d wager there is minimal local call for partway folk-inflected ambient techno/IDM instrumental atmosphere. Yet that is what Wilkinson makes in his production guise as Quiet Noise, and why the international (electronic) music community is such an important hive of communication. Story Machine, the fourth Quiet Noise album and first for five years, is released via respected Sheffield label Audiobulb, and though parts of it feel caught between stools – not quite cinematic, not quite ravey – it contains some lovely chiming melodies and clock-tick beats.

Link to original article HERE

Etherreal

Alors que nous avions été plutôt emballés par Audible Life, publié début 2015, nous n’avions pas recensé ici l’album suivant de Quiet Noise, sorti quelques mois plus tard. Après une pause de cinq ans, c’est toujours sur Audiobulb, et toujours en numérique uniquement, que le musicien gallois offre un nouveau long-format dont il nous est précisé, éternelle présentation, qu’il a été composé et enregistré pendant le premier confinement alors que l’artiste était cloîtré chez lui, avec femme et enfants. Pour autant, à rebours d’un repli sur soi, Story Machine se distingue par une belle ampleur et un vrai sentiment d’être face à une musique qui a ouvert portes et fenêtres, pour éviter toute petitesse et introspection.

À titre d’exemple, Children’s Toys pourrait se contenter de proposer une mélodie cristalline et enfantine, tout juste agrémentée de quelques rythmiques ; mais, au lieu de cela, Adam Wilkinson y ajoute des basses grésillantes et quelques pulsations marquées. À fronts renversés, Murmurations aurait pu verser dans une polyrythmie un peu trop chargée, mais se trouve utilement contrebalancée par des percées mélodiques du plus bel effet, tandis que View From The Top équilibre ses frappes appuyées par des chromatismes plus aériens. Et on pourrait, comme cela, citer possiblement les dix titres de Story Machine.

Plutôt courts (un seul dépasse, et de quatre secondes, les cinq minutes), ces dix morceaux démontrent ainsi de très belles qualités : remise en cause permanente, équilibre impeccable entre rythmiques et mélodies, richesse d’ensemble, travail fin sur les tessitures. Rajoutons à cela que la construction de l’album permet d’aboutir à In The Water, titre qui débute sereinement avec quelques bruits d’eau, pour monter progressivement en puissance et aboutir à des explosions, type feux d’artifice sonores, aussi prenantes que vertigineuses, qu’on pourrait presque ranger aux côtés d’envolées de post-rock lyrique.

Link to original article HERE

African Paper

“Story Machine sets out an expansive result from a context of limitation and pandemic lockdown. Rather than a sense of confinement we have a sense of adventure, escaping into a melodic alternative reality. This is a joyous journey and a wonderous ride tinged with brilliance aligned to the recent masterpiece works of Plaid. Adam reflects: “Stuck at home, sitting with my wife and children while they worked from home, I set myself the challenge of creating pieces using only equipment that could fit in my space on the living room table. Motivated by my game and pleasantly surprised by what I could achieve.” The result is an inspirational album that catapults the listener outside of small environments into a story of escapism, freedom and joy.” 

Link to original article HERE