Bass Communion
Cenotaph

Some relax by sunbathing on the terrace between albums, while Steven Wilson sees fit to compose more records. His library now seems boundless, with works recorded for his Porcupine Tree and those signed as a solo artist, to which are added the (not few, I see) albums under the moniker Bass Communion, a dark ambient-drone side project that I decided to explore with Cenotaph, a 2011 release, his latest release. Cenotaph is an electronic experiment that abandons all the sophisticated sound structures of the English musician to embrace a funereal minimalism, beautifully synthesized by the title and the cover, a sensory cemetery with arcane, perhaps paranormal, reminiscences. The album is composed of four endless movements, each practically lasting 20 minutes, and they share many elements, including a constant background noise, various layers, and an obscured, immutable beat (which is present for almost the entire album). It repeats essentially ad infinitum, depriving the listener of any reference or structure and leaving them in the vain attempt to tune in to an otherworldly radio station, that's roughly the effect it seems to have.

Consequently, it's not easy to elaborate a review by evaluating the single elements; everything is part of the same component, with really minimal variations. Citadel is perhaps the most menacing and macabre part, but also exasperating in its simplicity. The entire piece is dominated by a 4/4 beat so filtered that it loses any rhythmic support value, spectral choirs, sounds of gears, and a synth with apocalyptic tones. Setting up twenty minutes of ambient with elements reduced to the bone and extremely repetitive means challenging one's abilities to the limit; it's not easy even for great talents to keep the listener's interest. The mixing is not trivial and necessarily requires the use of headphones; there's really no point in listening to compositions like these on speakers, as important details are lost, and it all reduces to background music - let's call it that. Carrion is the perfect sequel to what has just been heard: the same elements return with minimal variations, instead of choirs, some notes of instruments (guitar and xylophone?) appear, which seem to infuse a minimum of life into the cold tomb-like architecture, but even these are choked, so deformed that they lose any semblance of humanity. As per the script, the notes repeat endlessly in this twilight mantra. The title track abandons the percussion (finally) to leave full space for the synths, here a hint of progression is finally visible, especially in the second part, while Conflux is perhaps the piece with the greatest melodic component, closing an album with pitch-black tones with a glimmer of light. The same beat line and other recurring elements return, including the omnipresent background noise, samples played backward, and other suggestive amenities.

I'm not sure Cenotaph is the best starting point to begin exploring the Bass Communion catalog, but I once again commend Steven Wilson for finding yet another outlet for his creative talent. It is a fairly heavy album to digest, exaggeratedly long, and should be evaluated on a global experience level rather than focusing on individual parts. Those who love the drone-dark ambient genre should give it a chance, but I'm not completely convinced by the execution; the feeling of facing four exasperating and gigantic loops is strong. Perhaps in the end, Cenotaph is not an operation to be taken too seriously, considering that Wilson arranged (it seems the appropriate term to me) everything in parallel with the production of Grace for Drowning, using this album as the opener for his concerts. A minor music with a primarily functional role, yet nonetheless evocative in its own way and not without a perverse charm.