Bibio
Ambivalence Avenue

I wanted to be inspired by the title of one of the tracks from the recent "Ambivalence Avenue," titled "Haikuesque," to introduce you to the new marvel by the young Englishman Bibio, also known as Stephen James Wilkinson. From Wikipedia "An Haiku is a three-line poetic composition characterized by five, seven, and again five syllables. It is a poem of simple tones that eliminates lexical embellishments and conjunctions, drawing its strength from the suggestions of nature and its seasons." I thought to myself, I'll give it a try: the intent to condense the contents of a review into an Haiku is stimulating as well as fun; this album, then, ambivalent in terms of simplicity and ambition, lends itself well to being reduced to mini lexical terms, if only to cure my seasonal ailment, loquacity. Creating a Haiku turned out to be a gentle torture, mitigated by the most pleasant listening of "Ambivalence Avenue," a subtle therapy that produced the following small masterpiece:

The missing link

of the Warp sound

from Aphex Twin to Grizzly Bear

Not knowing how to syllabify in English and perhaps not even in my own language, let's generously agree that the Haiku is correct and move on. Without laughing, please, so I can make an additional effort just for the more prosaic among you.

The flow of modern music is karstic: significant currents have sunk long ago and reemerge here and there in a thousand streams, almost always treacherous and muddy. Unpassable to us, adventurous spirits. In the desolation, discovering sources of adamant inspiration is always a great satisfaction: "Ambivalence Avenue," indeed, may not be our Nile, but it fully satisfies and convinces even in the presence of manifest and inevitable derivation: the treacherous "Haikuesque" radiates "spirals of jigs" that ensnare from the first listen and "The palm of your wave", by the second, is already intimate folk anthology; the title track is a welcome to advancing Africa; "Lover's carvings" introduces the Felt to Fleet Foxes; "S'vive" is the essence of glitch hip hop; “Sugarette,” “Dwrcan,” and “Fire ant” ferment with pollens of Aphex Twin/Global Communication/Autechre; "Jealous of roses" is surely Beck captured in concert on Mars while "Abrasion" is yet another homage paid to the Beach Boys by the new generations.

Alongside "GOK" by Bill Wells and "Grandes Exitos" by Ariel Pink, "Ambivalence Avenue" is one of the toy albums of 2009 not to be missed.

I realize that loquacity is far from being cured, but all dowsers are now warned.