Mixing Colours: Mapping The Spectrum of Silence & Sound
I’ve always been interested in the relationship between silence and sound. I think about the beauty that comes when silence first subjects itself to sound, it can be almost explosive with attention. In the opposite sense, I also think about when sound subjects itself and slides into silence, it can be a radiant echo we can’t pull our attention away from. The more that I think about it, the more I realize these engagements run our lives. Noise, quiet, silence, melody. All of these make an impact on our emotional well-being throughout the day.
I’m always in desire of a certain sound, or if the day has been hectic enough I’m in desire of the absence of a certain sound. I spend the day moving from one end of the spectrum to the other whether I like it or not, and more often than not it’s out of my control.
What I’m focused on here are the moments where I’m in control, and it’s in these moments where I really engage and deepen the spectrum with the power of discovery. As most people, I spend time looking for new music on many of the streaming platforms curated playlist they have for certain moods. Playlist can only proximate a certain feeling though, since our tastes aren’t exact.As much criticism as this process gets, it does have the brilliant benefit of diversifying my musical palette. I get accustomed to and familiar with not only certain artist but their sounds as well. After some time with that sound I get comfortable enough to step outside of it and find new artist similar to it but not exact.
It’s true, different sounds satisfy and nourish different aspects of the self, and those sounds don’t always have to be music. There have been many days where I’m rejuvenated simply by sitting by a creek and listening to the rough song of the blue jay. But there is something different about the joy of “discovering” or “finding” a sound on a playlist that satisfies an emotional need that we needed satisfied.
Thanks to Apple Music’s Classical Edge playlist I had the pleasure of “finding” Mixing Colours, the first collaborative album from experimental artist Brian Eno and his pianist brother Roger Eno. Although both of these men have extensive and well-respected careers this is their first time coming together to create a project. According to the interview on Brian Eno’s youtube page this is essentially an extended conversation that spans almost 15 years in the making. What these two came together to make is an album that helps me understand the spectrum between silence and sound while also locating ideas of space, language and echos within that.
In an interview with NPR the brothers stated that they created this album by Roger making songs on a MIDI keyboard and sending them to Brian for him to “create sonic landscapes out of”. As pompous as that might sound each song does have unique scenic quality to it that creates enough space for it to be mapped and “seen”.
Taking for instance the song Blonde, which feels singular and light-hearted enough to picture the color it’s titled after. It’s almost joyous and it’s use of echoes is always fulfilled. It’s a satisfying song and the satisfaction turns into a comfortable safety the longer you listen to it.
What this album does well though, is diversity not only the use of the scenic, but also the use of the echo and the use of silence. All too often Ambient or Electronic albums can run the risk of becoming redundant in their use of melody and characteristic, and it bores the listener. Mixing Colours avoids this by using enough difference in tempo speed, melody, and space between silence and sound, that it keeps the listener involved all the way through the project.
All of the songs are not light-hearted though, and the echo on this album is used for various means. It acts as a transporter or road that makes physical the distance on the spectrum between Silence and Sound. It may rush from one sound to the attempted safety of the next, but it is not always fulfilled.
Although at first listen the song Deep Saffron might appear to sound consistent, once the language of the album is put forth it seems to shifts the use of silence into a reprieve instead of an absence. The melody is too suspenseful to find it anything other than jarring or haunting. We hear this also on Wintergreen, where it does have some beautiful chords that expand and endears it’s silences in a way that liken them to the night sky. Both songs are eerie and entrancing, and this quality can be considered one of the facets of what makes this album so powerful. It navigates the spectrum of Silence and Sound with such nuance and deft that new spaces are created by its travel.
Mixing Colours holds dear the wonderful sense of Mystery that emanates from the best of classical and ambient music. It has a similar resonance that poetry does, where instead of clearly stating something it hints at. Sometimes the songs procrastinate while other times they proximate. They direct to a space that isn’t easily expressed. and you follow along with it in that direction in hopes of being able to state whatever it is that you’re feeling. Unfortunately, just as quickly as you try, that key that directed you there veers off and almost disappears. The only certainty of that space you’re left in is that of Almost. Not Joy , but almost. Not grief, but almost. Not fear, but almost. and that space is a more powerful question than any certain idea the song could have given you.
All and All, Mixing Colours is a tender waltz that both eludes and alludes to the heavy dark moments moments of our lives as well as the light and joyous ones. The album expands not only ideas of silence and sound, but also the wonderful possibilities that come from patience and collaboration.
