Search - Christopher Bissonnette :: Periphery

Beautiful ambient drone album of warm shifting tones

somethingexcellent | Lincoln, NE United States | 11/24/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Periphery is an album created out of piano and orchestral sounds, yet one might never know it listening to the release. Christopher Bisonnette has developed a system using filtered samples of the aforementioned sounds, and creates his pieces in long, improvised sections with random variables affecting the audio patches and a human touch guiding it all. The result is music that fits almost perfectly with the title of the album, as sounds that are familiar to the ear drift and float and flutter and almost seem to blur time itself. In other words, you're hearing just fragments of the larger whole, but Bisonnette turns these pieces into something compelling and engrossing on their own.



Bisonnette is the co-founder of a media collective called Thinkbox, and he's been working with sound experiments for a long time, ranging from spoken word to turntable experiments, but Periphery finds him entering atmospheric realms inhabited by others such as labelmates Stars Of The Lid and even Wolfgang Voigt (imagine his Gas project minus the programmed beats and you're somewhat close to the cloudy worlds that Bisonnette inhabits).



The tracks on Periphery move at a glacial pace, and like any really truly good ambient music, sound great at either low or really loud volumes. Opening track "In Accordance" drips in reverb as single piano notes tremble through whispy clouds of space, occasionally stuttering and glitching before being overwhelmed by their own sustained tones. "Proportions In Motion" feels slightly more oppressive (think Deathprod on a good day) as sheets of darker, hazy sound slide across each other like clouds before a storm.



Although the pieces on the album are fairly uniform in their presentation, there are a couple that stick out, and "Substrata" is one of them, as trembling strings create a real palpable tension before releasing it bit by bith with stuttering bursts that keep you holding your breath. With seven tracks that run nearly an hour in length, Periphery is an immersive, beautiful ambient release from a young artist I can't wait to hear more from.



(from almost cool music reviews)"

A standout piano/electronic album

Richard Yacuk | Whippany, NJ USA | 08/20/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of my favorite records of the past few years...also on several record reviewers' Best of 2005...do a Google search.



An artful, slow moving, mysterious record. Sounds and feels vaguely like classical, but completely unlike classical. Familiar piano, electric piano, and synth-string sounds are processed and filtered and stretched out into overlapping, sustained textures. While emotionally cold and detached, it is not devoid of emotion.



I think the genre might technically be electronic-drone, but I don't like that term. It feels like a movie soundtrack, to a movie with a lot of natural scenery.



Similar to early Mark Isham records, or to labelmate Loscil, but without the rhythms and movement. Very gentle.



I love this record. A lot.



If you like this, also check out Loscil, Chris Herbert, Tim Hecker"