#5

Bibio - Silver Wilkinson

     Silver Wilkinson is the most recent album released by the experimental, UK based artist Bibio, being released only less than a year ago.  Despite its short life, it has violently thrust itself into my handful of favorite albums.  Silver Wilkinson is vastly unique, versatile album, incorporating many other genres such as synthpop, folk, and chillwave.  Bibio manages to make this stew of genres successful, making the elements commingle into a light, delicate, and milky texture in a warming atmosphere.  One of the most distinguishable elements is the haunting, desolate vocals that engulf the ethereal atmosphere created by the soft, twinkling synthesizers.
     Many of the songs on this album have this breathtaking, unworldly, and somehow chilling warmth to them. Though most of the songs on the album share this common atmosphere, there are a few misfits such as the songs You, Look at Orion!, and Business Park.  Although these songs don't fit the pattern and elegance of the others, they manage to support the claim that this album is one of a kind.

     The album opens with a twinkling and random collaboration of airy noises, sounding imaginative, much like a fantasy.  These delicate, dripping sounds quickly fade out, replaced by the rising crescendo of the deep, impenetrable rolling of an acoustic guitar.  The liquid tumbling flutters vividly, painting a gleaming landscape that is soon washed away, flooded by the melancholy, echoing vocals that intimately trickle into your ears.  The following song, Wulf, trembles with weakness, holding the faint embers of the world painted with the first two tracks.  The album suddenly breaks away from this poetic dreamscape to unveil a new, exuberant tune; À tout à l'heure is one of those rambunctious but lovable misfits I had
mentioned earlier.

     This strange evolution from rippling delicacy into chilling desolation remains the pattern throughout the album; weaving between uplifting ecstasy and yearning isolation.  Silver Wilkinson remains a gleaming torrent of warm, elegant energy, passionately giving life to an otherwise vast landscape.  Managing to wrap the listener in a blanket of comfort, lifting his/her consciousness into a gently swaying meadow on a clear and breezy summer day.

Imperial:   13/10
Metric:   9/10