Customer Reviews

Silence Speaks in Shadow

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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I no longer live in a city--my last confinement being in Montreal, Canada. I still believe that a city offers quiet moments of intense silence where a person can feel the truth without talking about it. Often, the most spiritual time in the city happens late at night, sitting in the dark, thinking and listening to the small noises of the night. The most glorious times of all are those late nights when there is a gentle, lingering rainstorm that dampens the city noise with the random sounds of raindrops and distant thunder. Nights when it was warm enough to open the window, and smell the air. In those times, "Silence Speaks in Shadow". In this CD, Paul Vnuk, aka MaJaLe, has recorded those soft noises of a rainy city late at night, and has added a thoughtful, elegant, ambient electronic soundscape. The music palys in the rain with the night noises--if you listen you will hear distant voices and a cat talking to the night. Even in Alaska, with no city outside my window, this CD brings me back to those dark, summer nights in Montreal in the rain, and it feels right.

I've had this CD for a while and I continue to listen to it regularly. Dreamy ambient music without being cheesy. City noises, mostly rain and thunder, are evocative and subtle. Calming backround music, but rich enough to justify active listening. Eerie but not depressing. Can't tell if I am being taken to some strange pleasant astral plane, or simply lower Manhattan during a late August rainstorm. If you are at all tempted, go for it and buy it.

I definitely think of Blade Runner when I listen to this quietly majestic masterpiece, the beauty and mood of which is unparallelled, especially among the long-form pieces, e.g. Steve Roach and Matthias Grassow (the latters "A Distant Light" comes closest to "Silence" in beauty, but is dramatically different). Paul Vnuk has created a moodpiece that defies clear description, as it is both spiritual and very down to earth at the same time, a hard thing to achieve.

Buy this gem and invite your friends to listen. Beg, borrow or steal this album. It needs to be much more well-known.

Why can't stuff like this sell as much as Lady Gaga?

I really love the music on this CD which is accompanied throughout by the sound of rain falling outside on the street, but at around the ten-minute mark you can hear repeated meowing of a cat and it is so heart-wrenching! Poor kitty cat got stuck outside in the rain and wants to come in! The meowing only lasts for about a minute though, so I guess the sweet kitty friend got let inside, thank heavens! Poor Thing!