Verse Of Birds
豆瓣
简介
Birdsong is stunning to hear, alluring even in repetition. Yet it is so commonplace that we often miss it, even when the volume is deafening. Like a netlabel curated by the natural world, it is unlimited in supply, available for free streaming and wireless capture at nearly any hour. It is impossible to silence, and therefore impossible to value.
An interesting debate took place a few years ago, best detailed by the BBC program Why Birds Sing. The science may be concluded but the impact of the question still resonates: do birds really sing? For pleasure? From an unlimited spectrum of notes? Or is birdsong strictly biological, a matter of survival, deterministic in melody and varied only from one species to another? In other words, is the verse of birds elective, or instinctive? By now we’ve all read Richard Skelton’s background and we are aware of his recording methods, and the question is sure to divide his audience neatly in half. Was Box of Birch a search for aesthetic fulfillment? Or was it exactly what it needed to be at the time?
The material that Richard Skelton releases under his given name has always seemed like his most honest. The guises — however transparent — are left aside: A Broken Consort, Clouwbeck, Heidika. This might only be the power of suggestion, as his techniques do not change from one album to the next. Of the acoustic guitar, Skelton still holds fret noise and string buzz to almost the same regard he does its acoustic resonance. Of the violin, he still values the ridges of the string nearly as much as the notes it delivers. By any fair assumption he records first and draws up the blueprints afterward, exhaustively layering and trimming bits of guitar, violin, and piano into something akin to white light. It is the process that earns him mention among other ambient artists, not the output; Verse of Birds is an acoustic collection right down to its fibers, and any electronic manipulations serve the instruments, not the reverse.
Verse of Birds is mostly familiar ground, to be sure, and its 100 minutes do not feel shorter than that. Tracks run long; not one of them is shorter than five minutes and a few exceed ten. This way an hour passes before “Little Knives,” which many of us will miss the first few times we set out. But it is the first highlight, an anxious wait under turbulent weather. The rapid boil of strings and precise thud of plectrum is mesmerizing. Writers loosely apply the term “modern classical,” and with tracks like “Little knives” it is clear why: the ambiguous breeze of violin, the profound ache of piano and guitar, the minimal arrangements, and the abandonment of big-room storytelling. It is graceful, ageless, and nourishing.
Similarly, nearly another 30 minutes pass until we glimpse the closing track, “Domain.” An 18-minute indulgence, yet downright persistent in temperament, the composition moves with adagio half-steps and subtle melody. Unlike with “Little knives,” Skelton sets aside his proprietary abstractness for a deliberate narrative path, contrasting the rich flow of violin with more muted chirps of guitar. After a quarter-hour of adagio bliss, the movement slows further, concluding with broad, sometimes industrial gusts of string, and gripping echo.
Like the vocalizations implied by its title, Verse of Birds moves us with its simplicity and caprice; it thrills us with its loops. But it differs in one way: its value to the listener is clear.