From Synth & Sequences Between the borders of a land of ice and the most white petit point in the horizons of the cosmos, a big humming roams while being flogged by the bites of sound stars. Heavy, this ambiospherical introduction opens Erik Wollo’s the last performance at the famous Star’s End radio show of 2015. This time, the Scandinavian electronic bard makes counterweight to Silent Currents 3 by spreading an immense mosaic of soundscapes where the breezes of the North and their haloes of hoarfrost infiltrate the whispers of the caves of ice. Star’s End 2015 (Silent Currents 4) is doubtless the most quiet show of the series with linear and minimalist synth lines which intertwine their slow ambient arcs with some fine astral modulations in their caresses. We can hear the cosmos buzzing peacefully here as well as a thick cloud of seraphic voices, sometimes even a choir, which get lost in the hollow winds whistled by the high ice-cold tops. The whole thing forges immense sound waves which always leave cosmic residues before returning in cosmos. Layers of more seraphic voices swallow their rollings at around the 20th minute, freeing a more bright corridor where cavort crystal clear keys which wait only for a shadow of rhythm in order to take life. These small sequenced pearls gambol around and seem to shiver in the cold underground rivers of the Scandinavian caves, except that their brightness is too weak to make take out the rhythm of its den of serenity. It’s as peaceable than soothing. The movement remains black and crumbles its minutes to the meter while that quite slowly is spreading the night over the shadows of Wollo in the studios of Star’s End on WXPN-FM in Philadelphia. We arrive at the point of 30 minutes and the hollow breezes put on their wings another tone. That of a guitar that Erik Wollo caresses slowly with an Ebow, forging tears which get lost in our sense of hearing as were the ones of a synth. A suspended river makes its bed of sequences glittering which is singing with the sighs of the Ebow and this fusion of voice and of breezes which decorate the ambiences of “Silent Currents 4”. A structure of minimalist rhythm makes skip the waterfall of sequences, structuring so an ambient rhythm which rings and resounds in layers of distant voices and in the shadows of the six-strings. This brief phase of aerial rhythm is swallowed by the anger of the winds which scold such as a distant machine of the cosmos, preparing the rather tribal rhythm which brings us to 50th minute. It’s another short phase which fades out in rustles and in these immense layers of winds which accompany this quiet travel of our subconscious fed on serenity in the valley of Erik Wollo’s silent currents. -Sylvain Lupari
