September Collective
All the Birds Were Anarchists

THE REVIEW

It can be disappointing to lend an ear to yet another sonic creation, suspended in the indeterminateness of certain current music: gentle electronics and acoustic softness, ethereal atmospheres from which timid melodic patterns emerge, traversed by fragmented rhythmic sequences and punctuated by digital particles. Without the aid of an album cover, how can one distinguish one record from another?

Well, the cover of "All The Birds Were Anarchists" explodes with vibrant greens on which the white of the name stands out dazzlingly. And inside, beyond the lush vegetal layer, we find the silhouettes of the three musicians (Barbara Morgestern, Stefan Schneider - one of the To Rococo Rot - and Paul Wirkus) intent on creating, based on improvised sessions then manipulated, layers of sounds of a more intangible vegetation. We enter with caution, not for fear of a hostile nature but rather imagining an absence of life, in the landscape of faint beats and thin notes. Soon, however, amidst rustles and trembling digital vapors, in the subdued crackle that accompanies our steps as we advance following the ring of notes from a piano, we perceive the existence of a small, abstract yet vivid world, rich in details. In its own way similar to the nature that peeks out from the cover: alive, disorienting, and welcoming at the same time.

In the crowded panorama of similar productions, listening to the second album of the September Collective, turns out to be one of the most interesting walks taken this year: one might find oneself retracing its paths, perhaps secretly wishing to get lost....