The Itself of Itself

Long established as a purveyor of mostly atmospheric or ambient textures, the seven cuts that represent 'The Itself of Itself' take detours from this approach in order draw as much from musique concrete, noise music, abstract electronics and uneasy listening.
Whilst still rippled with the same shades of light and dark that can be found throughout all of Bass Communion’s work, 'The Itself of Itself' reveals a fascination with analogue sounds and, more importantly perhaps, ‘unwanted’ analogue artefacts like tape hiss, wow and flutter, static noise, and sonic break-up, taking the music into a space at once different yet familiar.

‘Apparition 3’ presents a stark nod to Wilson's established command of shifting textures steeped in penumbral gauze, while ‘Bruise’ is akin to a space probe adrift and headed towards a white dwarf as all communication is reduced to a disturbing and indecipherable crackle.
Between the other five cuts we witness fragmented, garbled and buried voices, vast vacillating banks of grainy hum, what sounds like the dying gasps of an oboe, spooky swirls from an indiscernible source, swathes of tape hiss, moody drones, and spiralling slivers of noise. Meanwhile on the title track, a mellotron flute rusts and collapses in on itself in a way that renders it the very antithesis of the one deployed on ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

Above all, 'The Itself of Itself' sees Steven Wilson cutting his teeth on an album that’s at once cinematic and moody whilst proving him to be a master in electronic music craftsmanship.
It’s an album that might surprise some of those who have thus far been paying attention to his work as Bass Communion, but setting out to please everyone was never part of his raison ‘etre.
'The Itself of Itself' catches Bass Communion spreading its weatherbeaten wings to embrace new strategies and a strong desire to journey elsewhere.

Arriving in a wonderful Carl Glover designed deluxe cover also comprising a 24 pages booklet of his photographs and an obi strip.

Tracklist:
1 Unperson 10:34
2 Apparition 3 6:05
3 Bruise 13:20
4 Blackmail 7:25
5 The Itself Of Itself 10:25
6 Study For Tape Hiss And Other Audio Artefacts 11:58
7 Apparition 5 2:46

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