Exit in Grey provides us four stunning portraits of stillness, before they are softly blown away by solar winds, like sand paintings.
In his liner notes, Sergey, known as [S] and residing in the Moscow area, explains Shadows of Stillness as an act in defiance of “all-consuming time” by trying to express and realize oneself socially and creatively. [S] is Exit in Grey (also Five Elements Music and Sister Loolomie) and lists guitars, effects, harmonium, Polyvox, field recordings, and “VLF radiowaves of Earth atmosphere and space bodies” as his instruments.
The beauty of his desolate drone is in the discreet, enswathed detail. A hot wind squalls across denuded, contaminated ground on “The Sunset Dust in Our Hands.” Struggling to be heard above its roar is nascent melody, the lone voice facing up to implacable elements. “Shadows” creep across a similarly desolate but less tormented landscape, one across which a lone guitar echoes, intensely searching for a listener.
“Speaking with Silence” sounds like the whistling of dolphins in a peaceful harmonium lagoon while “So Beautiful and Quiet Place” is an aviary in colored air. Exit in Grey provides us four stunning portraits of stillness, before they are softly blown away by solar winds, like sand paintings.
Shadows of Stillness is available on Muzyka Voln.
