Bass Communion

Introduction

Bass Communion is a solo project by Steven Wilson, better known for his progressive/psychedelic band Porcupine Tree.  To quote from the No-Man web site www.nomansland.demon.co.uk, "Bass Communion is the name SW gives to recordings he has been making since 1994 in an ambient and/or electronic vein. Most of the pieces are experiments in texture and are generated from processing recordings of real instrumental performances." BC music fits best into the Ambient category as it consists of slow drifting electronic instrumental tracks.  The sound predominantly consists of lower-frequency sounds, hence the project name I assume.  There are three albums so far and they are all simply titled Bass Communion.  The first two have become favourites of mine despite having quite a lot of this sort of music.

[ Album Cover ]

Bass Communion
by Bass Communion

Released 1998
Label: 3rd Stone
Catalogue: stone 036cd

[ Reviewed August 2002 ]

The packaging of this album is excellent, with a different CD card for each track so that you effectively have 5 different album covers.  The photography and layout are worth mentioning, being done by Carl Glover.

It's very hard to describe music anyway, but almost impossible and/or meaningless to describe ambient music.  This album is not ambient in the sense that an Eno album would be, there is far more going on.  But to those not used to this sort of music it may appear that there's not much happening.  He's managed to produce an album that is interesting and varied to listen to, through the use of differing sounds on each track, and nicely lengthed tracks of around 10 minutes.  (A lot of ambient music sticks in the same groove for a whole hour, which even I find painful at times.) The album tends to be slightly on the dark side, with a mournful quality, where a lot of electronic music is neutral to listen to.  The sounds range from slowly evolving and repeating synth chords, sampled guitar chords and muted saxophones.  All of this is mixed in with plenty of echo/reverb to give it atmosphere, and some unique homemade sounds.  The masterpiece is the 25-minute epic drugged that features a repeating sample of a Robert Fripp soundscape with gentle electric organ notes.  It actually improves on RF's soundscapes, and you find that you just don't want it to end.

Tracks:
1.shopping1:24
2.drugged13:32
3.sleep etc13:28
4.orphan coal10:04
5.drugged24:55
total time 63:43

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[ Album Cover ]

Bass Communion II
by Bass Communion

Released 1999
Label: hidden art
Catalogue: hi-art4

[ Reviewed August 2002 ]

This is a good solid follow-up to the first one and I'd say it's almost as good.  My copy is in a card envelope issue (does this format have a name?) with more high-quality images from Carl Glover.  It came with a limited CD-EP of two tracks featuring Robert Fripp, but I'm not sure exactly how limited this is.

The music is slightly darker in feel than the first album, and probably slightly less musical.  It again features tracks of around ten minutes, which is about the right length of time to explore a theme.  The best track is drugged III which features a deep drifting syth backdrop that slowly ebbs and flows, a series of guitar chords is then very slowly repeated over the top.  Wilson again finds his knack of holding a note exactly the right length of time before moving on to the next one.  This timing thing reminds me of the beauty of Global Communication's 76:14 album.

The two tracks on the EP are more ambient/experimental in style than the album.  The first track features another Robert Fripp soundscape sample that repeatedly ebbs and flows.  Wilson's own sounds and processing are added and it takes on a hypnotic quality.  The second track is more experimental with a more varied sound palette and random structure; it features elements of drugged III in the mix.  It's the sort of thing that Klaus Schulze would do.  Listening again to this EP for the purposes of the write-up I find myself really enjoying it, I'm guilty of ignoring it in favour of the album.  It's a decent work in its own right.

Note that at the time of writing (August 2002) a full-length bonus CD is due for release featuring many more artists.  This replaces the original disk and you should be able to get it on its own.  An update to this (December 2002) is that the album has been released as a single disk with the Robert Fripp track tacked on the end.  A bit disappointing that, see the Burning Shed web site for details.

Tracks:
1.advert0:57
2.16 second swarm10:55
3.grammatic oil10:11
4.drugged III17:00
5.dwarf artillery7:15
6.wide open killingfield12:57
total time 59:31

EP Tracks:
1.a grapefruit in the world of park12:10
2.snakebird11:13
total time 23:23

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[ Album Cover ]

Burning Shed Archive
by Bass Communion

Released 2000
Label: Burning Shed
Catalogue: none

[ Reviewed August 2002 ]

This album is a collection of pieces dating from 1995 to 1999 and is available as a CDR from the label itself - Burning Shed.  The packaging is simple but good, a screen-printed CD, a tasteful cardboard sleeve with a nicely printed sheet (Carl Glover again).  Don't forget to keep those CDRs out of the sun else they'll be ruined.

I've had the album a while and remember it not grabbing me when I got it.  On fresh listening I still find the music itself to be disappointing, the best two tracks are actually variations on tracks on the second BC album.  43553E99.01 is a reverbed drugged III, and Grammatic Fog is pretty well grammatic oil.  The rest of the tracks don't seem to add anything new or go anywhere.  Take Amphead for example, 13 minutes of what could be wind noise with a synthesiser on outside in the gale.  This is typical of the worst 'excesses' of ambient music that gives it a bad name.  So to sum up, very experimental and very ambient - fine if you like that sort of thing.  It doesn't really have any musical content and I'd say it's for BC completists only, but I suspect that's the whole point of this release anyway.

See www.burningshed.com.

Tracks:
1.Amphead (1997)13:14
Three Pieces for Television (1999)
2.a - Sonar2:15
3.b - Lina Romay2:40
4.c - Grammatic Fog2:08
 
5.Slut 2.1 (1995)9:54
6.43553E99.01 (1999)14:06
7.Sickness (1996)11:12
8.Reformat Spiders (1998)7:50
total time 63:26

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Copyright Steve Bachini