While ostensibly only a mere remix album, this is actually something far more miraculous and novel: a second chance. The original All is Wild, All is Silent was a frustrating and somewhat clumsy album by a generally good band that seemed to have lost their way. Fortunately, eleven of Balmorhea’s talented pals have helpfully erased their mistakes and resurrected the material as a far more compelling and impressive work. Every band should get friends like these.
All is Wild, All Is Silent was Balmorhea’s first album with an expanded line-up and its heft and drama marked a jarring transition (for me, anyway) away from the elegant simplicity of their earlier work. Consequently, I was not particularly enthusiastic about hearing this remix album until I realized that Xela was involved: I could not even begin to imagine what Balmorhea’s cinematic Americana would sound like after being filtered through John Twells’ misanthropic, black metal-damaged aesthetic. My interest was piqued.
Once I put the album on, however, all thoughts of skipping right to Xela disappeared with the first song: Eluvium’s “Settler.” The 17+ minutes of angelic vocals, cymbal washes, backwards acoustic guitars, treated strings, creaking noises, and warm ambient haze are an absolutely stunning feat of sonic alchemy that caught me completely off-guard. Much to my great pleasure, Eluvium’s piece is not a fluke and instead sets the tone for everything to follow: the bulk of the reworkings here are almost unrecognizably transformed from the original songs and the spirit is much closer to the haunting fragility of the small-scale Balmorhea of old than the current, more lumbering post-rock incarnation.
Most of the best work on the album falls squarely into the ambient/drone category, such as Tiny Vipers, Bexar Bexar, or Rafael Anton Irisarri’s melancholic, glistening piano reinterpretation of “Harm and Boon.” The true highlight here, however, is inarguably Machinefabriek’s quavering, crackling, and absolutely mesmerizing “Remembrance.” While the piece wisely retains some of the organic instrumentation from the original material, such as banjos and stand-up bass, it artfully drowns them in a shifting, oscillating cloud of droning tones and a steadily intensifying loop of disquieting, warped classical vocals. It is a stunning and absolutely flawless work and I'm amazed that it is relegated to a remix album for another band- Rutger Zuydervelt must like the Balmorhea guys a lot.
Of course, there is some stylistic diversity on display too. In particular, Peter Broderick’s spoken-word open letter/choral re-envisioning of “November 1, 1832” is endearingly strange and stirring. Also, Helios turns in a pleasant and delicate IDM-influenced work, while the aforementioned Xela simply opts to envelop the source material in an escalating avalanche of oscillating noise. Jacascek’s bleak but perversely bouncy “Night In the Draw” is also quite noteworthy and occupies a bizarre no-man’s land between IDM, experimentalism, and classical music.
Obviously, some of the remixes included are less inspired than others, but this is generally a surprising and very strong album that completely eclipses its source material. I’ve been listening to it off and on for about a month now and have not grown tired of it yet, which is rather rare for me. Hopefully, Balmorhea have closely examined the Eluvium and Machinefabriek pieces and are tweaking their blueprint accordingly for future releases.
Samples:
- Eluvium - Settler
- Machinefabriek - Remembrance
- Jacaszek – Night In The Draw
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