Roger Berkowitz’s ongoing project unearth noise, has always had a similar broad effect on me. Over several stunning albums, his music hits hard with the subtlest of touches. Gathering sounds into patterns gleaned from an assortment of percussion, guitar, piano, fragments in space, all underpinned by an indefinable but heady ceremony in some dense forest, or under an odd night sky. Caught in a zone between abstraction, field recordings and pure texture, his music subtly blossoms into jazz and rock wire frames.
His latest album on Amsterdam based label Shimmering Moods is sentient songs, also spotlighting Gautam Karnik on violin and Henry Koek on saxophone on a few tracks. An 11 track, 57-minute-long suite that starts in a way that appears to be in no initial hurry to do much more that co-exist with you.
The opener – The Elements, is the gentlest cacophony of percussion, ringed by the chirping night forest. The Value Of A Tear, follows a literal weeping string and draws a beautiful droning arc. Unseeing I takes an organ pattern and weaves it into a rug of wordless vocalisations.
In fact, Jewel Of The Night Sky feels like the first actual destination in wherever we’re being led. Saxophones and drums, like a dream hazed jazz, whilst You Are shocks with its simplicity. The space carved around dulcimer notes, as a slowly corroding, almost Oval style glitchy wave fills the background. The Breeding Of Good Thoughts feels like sounds simply rising and occupying space in an engrossingly odd way.
Given this mastery of making the tiniest of gestures somehow monumental, From Darkness With Love feels like it’s too busy or a shade decorative. An interesting line drawn in the vaguest of criteria. However, Time Well finds that indefinably, exacting balance again, in its countless ripples of moody bubbling smears.
Berkowitz’s albums always carefully consider the track order, and seem to slowly intensify, and sentient songs is no different. Things comes alive in the blurring kaleidoscope Of Earth And Sky. Spinning what feels like some grainy lo-fi loop of a zoned out gamelan jam, pecked at by snaking Eno guitars and peppered in alien transmissions.
Rain Gods Advance spins around a chiming, clanking ball of magic, slowly dusted in lysergic electronic scribbles. The closer The Language Of Clouds is the sounds of everything so far, slowly being forced to halt. A fever dream of squealing train brakes and metal clanking, and Miles Davis’s mutant funk played under water, as the whole thing leads towards a cloud burst, and then absolutely nowhere…
After a few careful plays, sentient songs makes real sense as a title. Nothing here appears to be screaming for your attention, but everything is alive. A casual play through quite possibly might mean the album just floats on by, but it’s definitely worth finding the time to do nothing more than listen.
Things that perhaps initially feel downplayed or insignificant take on elemental power. The titles all frame a form of earthy positivity, but there is a sense they all try to genuinely harness huge universal truths via quiet honest means.
At some point if you allow it, things align, and you get pulled deeply into this music. The music begins to feel like your mind is conjuring the sounds, your brain is sharing the same space, ideas and structure as the players. Whilst stretched out on your sofa, wandering through the autumn forests, or watching candles flicker in the long evenings, you become a conduit.
There is an indescribable feeling that there is more here, than simply what was recorded or captured on tape.
sentient songs weird strength is in part due to the fact it’s easy to miss, yields more than enough from possibly not enough. Music to be alone with, and proof that our brains always try to fill the spaces.
Ultimately, in the right hands, a reminder subtly is a vastly powerful and deeply psychedelic tool…
sentient songs is out now on Shimmering Moods Records, available on CD and digitally here
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