Search - Not Breathing :: Starry Wisdom

Starry Wisdome - Not Breathing's amazing double disc album

06/15/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Not Breathing is one of the many great new acts on Invisible Records, a label which is home to some of the most innovative artists in electronic and experimental music. Dave Wright has been producing and releasing music on his own since 1994. Prior to Not Breathing signing to Invisible Records, he released eight cassette and vinyl recordings, most of them now out of print, through various indie labels. The Starry Wisdom, the follow up to last years highly acclaimed Invisible Records debut Sangre Azul, equals and possibly exceeds the brilliance of its predecessor. The Starry Wisdom, a double disc album, presents two diverse sides of Not Breathing. The first disc, subtitled Nuclear, is a continuation of the last album with an intriguing blend of intelligent techno sound synthesis, and drum and bass rhythms. The high points of this excellent recording are the sixth and seventh tracks. "Chunky Monkey" is a sixteen-minute track with hypnotic rhythm that is impossible to resist. Track seven, titled "Sexy German Chick Theme", consists of a 3 minute sample from an unnamed source about a female German secret agent bent on avenging the defeat of her country by the Americans in two world wars. Abyss, the second disc, is best described as one continuous atmospheric soundtrack. It isn't even remotely similar to the first half of the album. Although Abyss is divided into nine separate tracks, each one flows into the other as if it were a single collective piece. This disc opens with a recorded phone conversation between a mother and a daughter about an abusive father, which was obtained, according to the credits, by a "dumpster diving audio thief." The significance of this conversation to this disc, I am not sure of, but I'm guessing there probably isn't any. Many of the sounds used to create this disc are extracted from natural elements. For example, credit is given to an El Nino storm for the sound of thunder and rain heard on the final track titled "Wet Creos! ote.""