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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 |
| On his mostly instrumental third album, Stephen “Bibio“ Wilkinson again looks to 60s English folk via frail, painstakingly lo-fi recordings of acoustic guitar, field noise, and woodwinds. While Vignetting the Compost differs little from 2006’s Hand Cranked (I wrote about that one here), Wilkinson’s petite offerings are captivating, peppered with lots of backward-rolling swirls and tape hiss, and are as brittle as an old glass bottle. A lot of these pieces could’ve landed on his previous full-length endeavors; Wilkinson’s “Dopplerton” is blissful and gauzy — its central melody sounds looped, bookended by warbled bits of reverse guitar — but tracks like “Under the Pier,” which doesn’t land far from Fi’s “I’m Rewinding It,” play with the malfunctioning radio charm that Boards of Canada or Fennesz evidently so admire (BOC's Marcus Eoin recommended Wilkinson to Mush years ago) . Detuned electric piano tones are barely intact on “Under,” and they resonate about as well as the audio from your fourth grade classroom’s film projector — when you were young, it was a miserable sound. Now, it’s serene and wonderful. - The Whisper Council |
