| Artist: Janne Hanhisuanto Album: Branches Released: 17 February 2012 |   |
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Quiet Places (63'46") by Janne Hanhisuanto offers much more than the title suggests. Although subtle, it is a beautifully varied and colored album. Basic in construction yet complex in effect the 11 tracks manage to achieve tenderness in their hushed moments and bravado in the crests. From slow and ruminative to seething with synthetic energy Quiet Places glows with transfixing simplicity. As faint vaporous percussion, seeming so immersed in churning synth drones and metallic hits and swells, evokes an otherworldly meditation - elsewhere heroic keyboard leads sore above circles of sequencer notes and rhythm guitar. Further in a brooding drone provides a base upon which breathing tone clusters circulate as intermittent clanging suggests something more primitive. With its interesting sonic states and ever-changing textures Quiet Places is a reminder that simple musical pleasures can transport and transcend. Moving easily between stormy moods, trembling atmospheres and warm dream scenes Hanhisuanto nods to New Age, Ambient, Spacemusic and even Prog-Rock. With all its explorations of fresh sonic terrain Quiet Places suggests we have much more to hear from this imaginative musician.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 28 March 2012 | |
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