December Impressions

Album Review

December Impressions, Matt Borghi's third solo album, marks a departure from the comfortable pastures of ambient music toward something slightly more troubled and cold. The stillness and seductive warmth of Huronic Minor have been replaced by disquieting tones flying by between the stereo channels and a slow but insisting two-note motif in the bass register. The instrumentation is the same (synthesizers and treated acoustic steel string guitar) but the intention much different. :zoviet*france: comes to mind, Robert Fripp's darkest soundscapes too (although the music on this album never reaches that level of thickness), but also the arctic fantasies of Thomas Köner (see his album Unerforschtes Gebiet). One pictures cold winter winds over snowy fields and the glassy shimmering of an ice-covered forest. The album contains 11 tracks, but they feel like variations on a single theme, thus reinforcing the impression of stillness one feels in the heart of winter (so February Impressions might have been a better title). And just as winter months are a chore to many, December Impressions is not what you'd call a pleasant listen. But it delivers what it promises. ~ François Couture, Rovi