Cenotaph

Bass Communion is a project dedicated to (Porcupine Tree frontman) Steven Wilson's experimental and drone based recordings, sometimes in collaboration with other artists. With the exception of the first three albums, which include some electronic sources, most of the music is created from processing instrumental performances and field recordings.

Described by Steven as a sequel to 'Ghosts on Magnetic Tape', 'Cenotaph' (the project's eleventh full-length disc) is, in fact, far more than that. just like its renowned predecessor, still regarded by Steven as an all-time favourite in his oeuvre, the album turns spatial relations upside down, with otherworldly fields of microscopic crackle hovering in the foreground, as cavernous drones ominously flow underneath like steaming streams of molten metal. But whereas 'Ghosts on Magnetic Tape' would transform haunting passages found on old vinyl records into concise and highly organic textures, Steven has considerably expanded the dimensions of the music this time. Carving out vast aural sculptures - cenotaphs of sound - from them, the album is made up of four massive compositions around the twenty-minute mark. Each of them is a world unto itself, marked by the gradual appearance, temporary continuation and eventual decay of events within a non-linear continuum. And, for the first time in Bass Communion history, these mysterious cycles are propelled by a slow, brooding rhythmical pulse.

The subcutaneous sense of motion - a distant heartbeat rather than a fully-fledged groove - is complemented by a refined and highly variegated colourplay: 'Cenotaph', perhaps uniquely in the Bass Communion discography, combines and reconciles the light-drone- and dark-ambient-sides of the project, with nocturnal atmospheres and blissful hums standing side by side. This dual nature of the record matches its pervasive feeling of emotional ambiguity and if there's a concept at work here, it is never spelled out in full. Instead, the album remains true to the gut feeling Steven has always considered vital for his endeavours. As he puts it himself: "The sound is amorphous, spectral, 'old', like clouds of rust and decay. It's ghosts hovering above the tower. Music that broods and transforms the room you play it in into a place where time stands still and phantom orchestras beam carrion crow unease into your soul from a time long ago."