Search - Bibio :: Hand Cranked

Pastoral Brilliance

Hoichi, the Earless | Sietch Tabr, Arrakis | 09/30/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bibio's followup to their equally excellant debut Fi this year has been more than most impressive. Bibio stands apart from any kind of folk-psych stuff ine could name mostly because Bibio sounds so entirely different from anything else in the genre. Using hand made intruments, baryard equiptment, & whatever else, Bibio combines these most unlikely primary sources and summons forth from them the feeling of living in a pastoral painting that the british progger Caravan might have taken residence in back in their earlier days. These composistions are always having at least 5 touches of sounds in motion, curling, & interacting with everything else in a almost Philip Glass-esque way, but of course again with sounds unlike anyone but Bibio can make. These are the breezes, rustlings, weavings of grassy plains, and sighs of invisible gnomes of an English countryside you've always seen but never heard. As such as well with such uniqueness, the production owes its roots not in the polish of say Yes or Steely Dan, but also neither the treble-busting lo-fi aesthetics of something like Darkthrone or Nuit Noire. Put more simpy, this is diy production but still done aptly enough for one to detect each little stir/melody that Bibio creates and never jarring enough to ever prevent one from just being carried off to sweet netherlands of sleep while listening to it."