Rhian Sheehan: Standing in Silence (Loop)

I have no idea of Sheehan's standing in the local electronica community, I am sure some may pass this album off as a bit light -- but I've always had a soft spot for his interesting sonic landscapes which seem to me to owe an intellectual (not necessarily a musical) debt to Brian Eno's albums such as Music for Films, Music for Airports and his intelligent ambient output in the Seventies.

This new album is even more directly in that lineage, and these 14 (mostly short) short tracks are in the manner of music for imaginary films or refer to internal states rather than invoking geographical locations.

There is a dreamy ambient quality at work (which isn't always comfortable I should say) and in places it also refers to albums like Eno and Robert Fripp's No Pussyfooting when the guitar textures (by Jeff Boyle from Jakob I understand) come sweeping across the horizon.

This may be an aural landscape but it will also act as part of a multi-discipline exhibition of this music with photography (by Andrei Jewell) and film (images from Asia) at the Moving Image Centre (321 K Rd in Auckland) which opens on February 25.

That makes sense too.

This album isn't out for a week or two, but this is an early heads up on something very tasteful indeed. And a pointer to that exhibition. 

The video is for the piece Boundaries from Sheehan's previous album Tiny Blue Sphere