Customer Reviews

Refinement of the Decline

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The Tired Sounds Of came out nearly five and a half years ago and in the time since then has become one of my most trusted ambient releases. Sure, I love my Brian Eno and my more modern work by Deathprod and others, but there's something about the sounds that the duo of Stars Of The Lid put together on that release that call me back time after time. Of course, since that release came out, both members of the group have released solid solo albums (Adam Wiltzie's The Dead Texan and Brian McBride's When The Detail Lost It's Freedom), but neither of those releases seemed to quite match the power of the two when they were working together under that somnolent pseudonym.

And so And Their Refinement Of The Decline is not only a big release because it's their first in so many years, but also because it marks the ten year period of the two musicians working together, as well as the hundredth release on the venerable Kranky label. It's another sprawling 2CD, 3LP release from the group, clocking in at over two hours in length and it's quite possibly even more massive sounding and moving than their previous album.

That's saying a lot, and while it's not quite as immediately melodic as either of the solo albums from each member of the group, it's yet another album from Stars Of The Lid that simply seeps down around you and absorbs into your being. "Dungtitled (In A Major)" opens the release with a wheeze of filtered horns, then dissolves immediately into one of their familiar, yet somehow still highly moving widescreen panoramas of blurring strings, with a horn melody that creeps back in and tiptoes the line between mournful and triumphant. The two-part "Articulate Silences" is some of the most gorgeous stuff the two have ever done, letting breathy chords decay into silence before pushing into the foreground again, with the latter making subtle movements that weaken the knees.

When it was announced that Stars Of The Lid had another album coming out, I have to admit that it immediately shot to near the top of my list in terms of anticipated releases, but this eighteen song set still feels overwhelming (in a good way) at times. On the playfully-titled (one of several) "Don't Bother They're Here," huge waves of filtered drones pulse for over ten minutes while some underlying melodic elements play out slightly more actively, creating a nice juxtaposition of sound. Elsewhere, the ten-minute plus "The Daughters Of Quiet Minds" again feels familiar as a soft scarf or pair of gloves, but again shifts and breathes with just enough of a new edge that it's refreshing.

Yes, there are thousands of artists creating ambient music, and some of them probably have even nudged up slightly against the work that Stars Of The Lid create, but somehow this duo have managed to carve out another solid batch of songs that simply sound unlike anyone else doing this sort of thing. There are hints of modern classical, drone, and sheer textures that you won't find anywhere else, and when played on headphones (or nice speakers) And Their Refinement Of The Decline is literally a moving experience. Call it music for lucid dreaming, call it music for daydreams, or call it music for simply strolling in the dusk, this is another album that will stretch time and take you to another place.

(from almost cool music reviews)

After the post-millennial brick that was "The tired sounds of...", I was afraid that I had heard the last of SoTL. With the guys off in different days (Belgium vs LA), the effort needed to pull together and create anything, let alone something to match their previous best (not to bash Avec Laudinum, Ballasted or the others)would have to be signifigant. But with Refinement they have surpassed all my expectations.

This is the finest record to come out of 2007.

From the Bartok-esque opening strains of Dungtitled (in A Major), to the final mews of December Hunting for Vegitarian F*ckface, there isn't a point where my attention wanes or my emotions fail to be stirred. This is music that is at the same time cosmic and microscopic. It is the mechanical dreams of Pioneer 10 as it slumbers its way to infinity. It is the opera of hydrogen atoms. It is the songs of the empty spaces in the ocean, and the sound of dust motes in a beam of light as you sleep on a saturday afternoon with your dog.

With most of the 'ambient' music that is out there (Eno, Koner, Twin's SAW II, etc), it pays to let it enter the background and occasionally pop up to your attention. With SoTL's newest, I stand-sit-sprawl before my speakers in awe, with wonder at the music = no less than the bombasts of Sigur Ros or GSYBE at their finest moments. Do not buy this for sleeping. Buy this for awakening.

I first became acquainted with Stars of the Lid through the work of their members on their own: Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie (one of the members of The Dead Texan). I instantly fell in love with both, with their endless musical soundscapes that transport you much like the greatest works of ambient, so I figured Stars of the Lid wouldn't be too far from it.

While I can say their music is not for everybody, I found myself quickly devouring the entire discography by the duo. Their work is loaded with sheets of sound that overlay each other in an almost endless fashion. It's drone-based ambient at its best, without any rush or hush to help you sleep like a baby or take you by the hand through your meditation.

I've just finished listening to this double CD (121 minutes). I must say that it took me to many places and reminded me of so many other wonderful artists. It opens like Koyaanisqatsi, and ends like an Indian raga. Between these bookends it sounds like shimmering Harold Budd and Brian Eno. Warm passages soothe the soul. Dark corners keep you alert. Various instruments fade in and out. This is my first excursion into Stars of the Lid and I'd bet it's the best place to start. Put it on, turn it up, and relax for 2 hours. Very enjoyable.

The ambient scene is dying, and the general attitude towards ambient music has almost spiraled back into what it was before Brian Eno pioneered it forty years ago. People just don't seem to have the enthusiasm for atmosphere anymore. Less than experience, people now lean on beats and catchy, trashy melodies. They scoff at the thought of this type of music, and it never occurs to them that it is actually supposed to put them to sleep.

After a long break since their 2001 album The Tired Sounds of Stars Of The Lid, the Austin Texas ambient duo returned last year with yet another ambitious double album. Refinement might actually be an introspective cross reference to The Tired Sounds, which very well might have contributed to the decline of ambient music. That album was ambitious, but in the stereotypical sense of the word. It was, in a word, tired. Spanning two disks and god knows how many records, it often spent twenty minutes leaning on the same dull, inconclusive melodies, and segmenting them through three separate movements with negligible variation. It worked on occasion, but the album as a whole failed as ambient music, being downright dull and unrewarding while actively listened to, and uncomfortably dissonant while passively listened to.

That said, six years later, Stars of the Lid have clearly learned from their mistakes and made their true masterpiece, And Their Refinement Of The Decline. It is not the groundbreaking ambient album that we were waiting for, that would make as much impact on the genre as any Brian Eno or Harold Budd records, but it is a refinement, and we see the band in as perfect a condition as they have ever been in.

The style is the same at its core. Stars of The Lid make ambient drone music, and it comprises mostly of long lasting chords that are held for a long time, and gently drift into one another. This music is, in the same style as Brian Eno and other ambient music, meant to be atmosphere more than anything. This music is meant to accompany a daydream, color a visual passage in a movie or fantasy, or aid in relaxation or sleep. I also find this music appropriate to study to, and I have a very hard time finding music I can study to. Well, not for math. I can do math with music on. It actually even probably helps. It's the social studies and English that is hard for me to do with music. It is hard to read a passage or write something while listening to music. It's the words. But I can study with Stars of The Lid on. At least most of their songs. That says something for what it accomplishes as ambient music.

The instrumentation is pretty simple. Most of the main drone is comprised of cellos. The cello might be my favorite instrument. I was trained on the violin for half my life until I quit. If I could go back in time, I would choose the cello over the violin in a heartbeat. It is the perfect instrument for ambient music, a gentle middle tone below the sharp, often cutting violin tone and above the deep simplicity of the bass. Three people are credited to the violoncelle in the liner notes, "violoncelle" being the more official name of cello. Little history lesson here, cello literally means "little" in Italian, while the "violone" is a classical instrument seldom used today that was essentially a slightly smaller upright bass played while sitting down. The cello is literally a "little violone." The choice to make the cello the basic, fundamental instrument of the music was a good one. Scarcely anything is warmer and more soothing than a cello drone.

The majority of the melodies are played either through synthesizers or on a certain member of a humble, comfortably small horn section that is utilized in a scattered manner. And then each chord is touched with a deep echo. The result is usually very relaxing, and even the largest sounding chords are simple, pure, and warm. Melodies often take a long time to present themselves, and they usually only consist of two or three chords, but once they do, they are memorable. The problem is, most of these songs sound the same and have few unique signposts for recognition unless they are given a very significant amount of time. And even then, you probably won't be able to recognize them by name.

But don't let that fool you. Stars of the Lid have developed a knack for songwriting that eluded them on The Tired Sounds Of Stars of the Lid. Most of the melodies on that album sounded like broken doorbells, and Refinement only steps back into that territory once or twice with much greater success, namely Don't Bother They're Here (maybe this one was supposed to sound like a doorbell?). The band have also stepped away from the eternally dissonant style of The Tired Sounds by making the chord progressions more conclusive and easy on the ears, which is exactly what they should have always been in the first place. This is an ambient album that does not waste time with avant-garde intricacies, and instead immediately pins down a goal and sticks with it. No extra stuff. Just relaxing ambient music.

Highlights are not few. The opening Dungtitled gently starts things off with minimalist chords that slowly sweep around a single constant, an ever present pedal point drone in A. Then we have the only segmented piece on the album, the two movement piece Articulate Silences. Both parts are fundamentally different explorations of the same minimal melody, the first a gentle, comforting piece, the second a slightly more experimental piece, dipping with drones from registers beyond the reach of the first piece.

From here on out, the album scarcely hits any missteps, and the pattern of excellence continues through both disks. Particularly impressive is Aperludes, which sounds like less of a song for sleeping than a Brian Eno soundtrack piece. It evokes contentment, rather than closed door finality or longing. Another killer track is Dopamine Clouds Over Craven Cottage, a shimming evocation of natural beauty. By the second disk, things occasionally get a little darker or more bittersweet. Two songs in particular are much more bittersweet and emotional than their predecessors. That Finger On Your Temple Is The Barrel Of My Raygun evokes a distant feeling of danger, and Tippy's Demise cleverly represents itself. The tipping point has been reached, and the song is clearly the manifestation of this. We hear whatever Tippy is die. The dynamics are important. The closing epic, December Hunting For Vegetarian ****face, caps off the album. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, occasionally touching on moments of dissonance through the tranquility. It's nice, but almost twenty minutes is a bit long for one chord with minimal variation.

Minor flaws aside Stars Of The Lid's And Their Refinement Of The Decline is one of the best, most memorable ambient albums in years because there really are not any strings attached (well, figuratively.) What marked the downfall of the ambient movement was experimentalism. When people started realizing that they could make ambient music themselves from the confines of their own home and post their work on myspace, they realized that they had to try something new to differentiate themselves. Stars Of The Lid have come to realize that they can make ambient music that is simple, professionally. This is a double album to be remembered for its melodies as well as its atmospheres, and it foreshadows a recovery of the ambient genre back into something that is special, not messy, for its contrasting goals. It is as much a box of tools as a box of treasures.

This is Stars of the Lid's most refined and focused album. The two-part suite "Articulate Silences" is one of the most beautiful things that has been put to wax, in my humble opinion; the first part is all sweetness and unexpected, languid phrases, which by the end has almost forgotten where it started in all its beautiful lethargy; the beginning of part two is an unbelievably beautiful interpretation of part one, all sliding sheets of glass and church-like ambience. The track melts into a string section that's worthy of a birth or a funeral. The rest of the album is similarly evocative and quiet, like watching a glacier melt into a cup of gold or witnessing the most benevolent aliens landing in your backyard, in ethereal slow motion. Well done.

I got into ambient music for some semi meditation, and for reading I needed music that did not intrude my imagination. I usually listen to bands like Dream Theater, Led Zeppelin, or even stuff like Miles Davis, classical, James Brown, whatever. This stuff is definitely left field for me. My first introduction to this kind of music was Vangelis, but I consider him more a modern classical artist, though most people would disagree.

I consider this music for the thinker, because as a musician, I can appreciate the progressions and movements that are created here. This CD is definitely working twofold for me: one as a music that I semi-analyze chordal-wise (even though, I don't like to do that much to music that I want to listen to), and second as music that fits nicely in the background. I use this stuff to sleep, think, for reading, and for winding down. I do a few tours with a very loud rock band, and every night in the hotel, I played this for the soundman and I (we were room mates) and he was hooked on this stuff. This is music not just for the ambient lover, but for the music lover as well. I highly recommend all of it!

We all know that feeling, perhaps between your lungs and your heart. Right around where butterflies appear when you're really nervous but the place right above that is struck by beauty and happiness and nostalgia. This album brings about feelings of all of the above and drags listeners along for a massive length of two hours.

When I first heart of Stars of the Lid I didn't get the music at all but something kept me coming back to it. The name, the hype, the cover art, or the thought of the slowly moving sounds and how they truly affected my life. I'm mostly hoping the latter is the case. After some thorough listens it's amazing to me how the album really did change my life. It slows you down and gives you time to put thoughts together, gives you time to really think about things and realize this life moves far too fast. All of these feelings and thought are dragged along for the duration of the time through beautiful compositions of horns and strings. At times while listening to the album I find myself visualizing the sounds of the horns and strings emerging and hiding behind the following sounds which reveal themselves to the environment of sound and composition. It is difficult to differentiate when the songs being or end, though as it is playing it really doesn't matter.

This is an album for anytime. It is one to be actively engaged in, one to sleep to, one to drive to, or one to read to. The effect simply must be desired. It is nearly impossible to effectively describe the effect this music may have on a person's life but to an extent this is how it has affected me. This is what I see and think and become while the soothing, relaxing sounds are evolving. Highly recommended.

i think as a compilation perhaps their strongest, however i find their treatment here to be fairly depressed and lethargic compared to "tired sounds ..."

i miss the expansive optimism and relief of some of the sounds on "tired sounds...", this album has more of a feel of desolate winter in a tundrascape or something.

When I listen to this album, it's like I am listening to a completely new album all over again and again and agian and again...Do you grasp the concept? A NEW album, a completely different and familiar sound. The Duo has completely grasped my attention with with this indescribable and magnificent peice of work. When I heard the track "Humectez La Mouture" I fell into an emotional state of tears when I had never known what it was to really cry or even why it came to that point. Maybe it is because it is one of the most beautiful and haunting peices I have ever heard, or because I knew it would be the song I would have played at my funeral one day. Please, if you EVER spend a dime on a peice of music...buy this album. I purchased it twice...CD and LP.