Silencing the Singing

AMG Review of Silencing the Singing

William York
All Music Guide

This three-track EP is packaged (and titled) very similarly to the Silence Teaches You How to Sing EP, released earlier in the same year and itself a companion to the Perdition City full-length. Silencing the Singing is Ulver's first entirely instrumental release, but otherwise a continuation of the moody, electronic-based sounds heard on the aforementioned discs. "Darling Didn't We Kill You?" opens the disc with a looping electric piano chord progression, which is topped off by crackling static /p>

oises and electronic blips, before a down-tempo drum machine beat works its way into the mix and a few new loops surface. The mood is ambiguous -- not terribly dark or sad, but somewhat reflective and somber all the same. The other two tracks follow a roughly similar mood and pattern, mixing repeating piano melodies or chords with static-y surface /p>

oise and a few stray loops here and there. There is also a brief string quartet passage before the last track, "Not Saved," that shows a slight /p>

eo-romantic classical influence (ŕ la Arvo Part, for example). This EP is not a grand statement like each of Ulver's first five albums were, nor is it a drastic shift from what came before it (a change considering Ulver's usually unpredictable ways), but it's a nice, enjoyable disc all the same.