EXPERIMENTAL
BY JOHN MULVEY
Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu &
Marta Sofia Honer
★★★★
The Closest Thing To Silence
INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM. CD/DL/LP A New Age reveille for 2024.
“The most beautiful sound next to silence,” promised ECM Records in the 1970s, and the title of this equally beautiful album suggests microscopic adjustments in the soundfield; a pursuit of true ambience. But The Closest Thing To Silence is actually radiant and pulsating, occupying the fertile zone where New Age music and minimalist composition intersect. The French musician Ariel Kalma has long form in this sector since the 1970s, while the LA-based pair of Chiu and Honer are newer to the game, with one exceptional duo album in 2022’s Recordings From The Åland Islands (viola player Honer’s CV also includes sessions with Beyoncé). This serenely flowing collaboration mixes rippling synths with string arrangements and Kalma’s meditative woodwind tones; Terry Riley’s Reed Streams might be a good analogy. And as the album builds to the rapturous epiphanies of Stack Attack, another Riley landmark comes to mind: A Rainbow In Curved Air.