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MH-263 Bibio - Vignetting The Compost  Seamlessly amalgamating nature and electronics, Vignetting The Compost, the third full-length release from Bibio, channels instruments and vocals from a bygone era through a futuristic digital portal. History may credit Edison with the phonograph but, in truth, the first such device mysteriously washed up on the shores of England in 1876… playing Bibio. Vignetting The Compost is at once timeless and innovative; 60s-esque folk guitar and mechanic manipulations of sounds whose instruments of origin are less important than the feelings they evoke, layer upon each other with ease and intricacy. Just when you expect to hear Nico’s moan escaping your stereo, Bibio himself comes through with a voice that could have sung next to her on “These Days.” Truly, this is an album for the ages. |
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| Reviews Summary |
| Some of Bibio's most varied and immediate work - All Music Guide / A beautiful, crackling bricolage of vintage sounds - Evil Monito / Bibio’s best record - PopMatters / Quite perfect - Losing Today / Bibio should have no problem calling his greatest - Urb / Beautiful, expressive pools of sound - The Agit Reader |
| There are many, many ways to manipulate sound and it would seem that no one does it quite like Bibio. Every single song contained within Vignetting The Compost is a laudable piece of artistic work that deserves respect and appreciation for each and every detail which the music includes. Bits and pieces of hazy instruments seem to rewind around each other whilst a completely indefinable percussion fades into view behind everything else. Dissecting each track would take an eternity so it’s ridiculously astonishing to think that just one man put it together. The layers of different sound that each track possesses serve to slowly create an almost “meta character” that the record transforms into. It lifts itself away from the bracket of “seemingly random noises thrown together” and instead flies to a place where the likes of Boards Of Canada reside; an ambient, sometimes nonsensical realm where music doesn’t necessarily need vocals or structure. The record becomes an omnipresent being of music; everywhere and all the time. As you can probably tell, trying to describe the genre or direction that Bibio has chosen to take is like trying to define irony without using examples (it just can’t be done). Some of the songs follow a more generic musical structure, yet they still add nothing except more brilliance to the overall listening experience. Mr. and Mrs. Compost is just an acoustic guitar and gentle vocals but the production values morphs the atmospherics into an album which could have been recorded at the bottom of the ocean, on an eight-track. Why and how this manages to benefit the song is unbeknownst to us but (almost) needless to say it’s both complimentary and wonderfully executed. It’s hard to find reasoning as to why this music is so beautiful and appealing and it’s extremely difficult to correctly portray the feeling elicited when the record is played. It’s so unbelievably past the boundaries of “music” that it’s almost not music at all but instead a portrayal of what you can do with sound and how soothingly hypnotic noise can be. Picking favourites or highlights amongst the material isn’t needed when the material is as closely knitted and conjoined as it is on here. Each track sounds respectably different to its successor but to gain maximum pleasure from the record, it needs to be played as if was one entire song (and preferably with headphones on). There’s no better or worse track, only one long piece of sound. Vignetting The Compost sounds as if it’s been submerged in the ocean for a thousand years, finally found and then brought to the surface and played backwards. It’s an utterly absorbing and unique experience that drips with atmosphere and shows a completely new breed of talent that sounds like nothing you’ve heard before. - Strangeglue |
