Amongst Myselves
Auburn Silhouette

Amongst Projects
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor of REGEN Magazine

A perfectly executed excursion into open ambient spaces.

It's hard to extol the latest album from Australian ambient act Amongst Myselves, because Auburn Silhouette moves so slowly and gracefully that to shout its praises to loudly would do its subtlety a disservice. Like much of Steve Roach's work, Amongst Myselves creator Steve Roberts draws inspiration from the landscape, and his work expresses that. "Munstead Heath," in particular, evokes pastoral breezes through washes of breathy synth and gently tinkling wind chimes, and "Bay of Dreams" is as otherworldly as its title suggests, conjuring half-hidden images of foggy shores and distant wildlife. "Up into the Sky and Over the Edge" is suitably celestial, its ringing keyboard notes and hints of plucked strings floating aloft on winds of sustain, and "Star" moves into cosmic territory with signal chirrups pulsing their way through light years of ambient distance. Luckily, Roberts' mastery of traditional instruments as well as synths and studio effects keeps things tethered, and "Winter of the Falling Stars" guides the listener home on languid acoustic strums and muffled hand percussion. A filmmaker as well as a composer, Roberts also includes three extended video meditations that perfectly fit with the music. "Up into the Air and Over the Edge" uses sped-up images of shifting clouds to complement the song's contemplative sky-gazing, and "Southern Lights" features a collage of images from the Hubble Telescope. As the music itself gets earthier and more organic, with moody tribal percussion joining the drifting washes of sustain, the images themselves take on a more organic character, the spirals of ionized gas taking on the appearance of underwater gardens. Most conventional is the video for "Star," a visual "trip toy" of computer-generated fractal imagery, but it too is magnificent in its way, quietly entrancing rather than over-the-top psychedelic, and it fits well with the song's outer space meanderings. Incredibly deep yet accessible even to ambient novices, Auburn Silhouette is a remarkable work, and Steve Roberts proves worthy enough to be listed alongside such masters of the form as Steve Roach, Robert Rich, and Vidna Obmana.