Bluhm :: Signals in the Static (handstitched*)

Signals in the Static unfolds like a woven sonic blanket, warm and enveloping, as celestial voices drift, synths sway, and surreal blooms of ambient flutter shift and reshape across twelve pieces that feel more like soundtracks to life than a collection of tracks simply packaged together.

Appearing and fading as though time has lost all meaning

There’s an ethereal and subdued power running through Signals in the Static by Bluhm, the collaboration between Tim Diagram (Maps & Diagrams) and Genoveva, mastered by Ian Hawgood (Home Normal). The entire release unfolds like a woven sonic blanket, warm and enveloping, as celestial voices drift, synths sway, and surreal blooms of ambient flutter shift and reshape across twelve pieces that feel more like soundtracks to life than a collection of tracks simply packaged together.

Conversations, brief and drawn out, dissolve into microscopic textures, tones, and drones, appearing and fading as though time has lost all meaning. A delicate Cocteau Twins influence comes into focus, with signals flickering through the static, while compositions of varying lengths open into otherworldly escapes. Early Biosphere and The Orb moods segue into Pete Namlook, calm and unhurried, suspended in space, with vocal strands dancing gently through the breeze.

Thirteen years have passed since Bluhm’s last album, 2013’s In the Vale of Tears, released through the Facture imprint, which offered another dozen pieces of psychedelic, atmospheric soundscaping. Yet Signals in the Static feels renewed, more cinematic in its form, unfolding as a dreamscape that resists being pinned down. Its tranquilized synth passages stretch into the distance, subtle audio collages overlap and dissolve, and an almost acoustic sensibility lends the music a quiet intimacy, even as its pull becomes increasingly spellbinding and hypnotic.

Standouts emerge in the title track, alongside “Opus,” “Elsewhere,” “Thoughts in Willow,” and “Stonechoir,” each carrying a lingering emotional weight that makes us want to leave them playing indefinitely.

Signals in the Static is available on handstitched*. [Bandcamp]