AMG Review of Green Inferno

Johnny Loftus
All Music Guide

Green Inferno is the second solo effort from Town & Country and Pillow member Ben Vida. It truly is solo -- Vida made the recording in his Chicago apartment, manipulating a range of acoustic instruments to create Inferno's engrossing drones and experimental songcraft. He did tap fellow avant-gardist and T&C member Fred Lonberg-Holm for a field recording made of Puerto Rican coqui frogs, and the tiny creatures' two-note mating shrieks are the percussive background for the droning opener "All Afternoon, Pt. 1." Vida's frail, slumberous vocal drifts over brushes of guitar and a mildly unsettling resonating sound in "Kindlight -- Green Inferno," while the brief "Tracers -- Morning/Evening" is (relatively) more song-oriented, crosshatching layers of brass and string instruments over a barely audible voice for a warmly meditative feel. "Landlovers" is dominated by the insistent clap of hand percussion, and "All Afternoon, Pt. 2" transforms its initially terse violin into a swirling whirlpool of sound. While the break at its three-minute mark is startling and a little irritating, it does set up the piece's equally powerful final section, where the instruments seem to reach upwards as one and wordless, calming vocals reenter the mix. "Always/Never Sleep" is the other two-parter on Green Inferno, and it's a more unified sequence. "Pt. 1"'s rhythm is persistent, but it's the repetition in Vida's vocal that establishes "Pt. 2"'s patterns. The longest piece here at over nine minutes, "Always/Never Sleep, Pt. 2"'s hovering drone is given substance by the hand drum following along beneath it. At one point the drum is the only instrument, until it's joined again by the lingering tones of what could be a treated accordion. These patterns repeat and overlap one another, creating a soundscape that laces its simplicity with little intersections of complexity. Green Inferno is an organic, deliberate recording that interprets stillness -- both in nature and the pulled-shade interior of a city apartment.