Silvermandalas (Silverman)

FREQ Music E-Zine

When not making up a sizeable chunk of the musical bedrock of The Legendary
Pink Dots, and surprisingly unprolific in his solo work by the standards of
that group, Phil Knight has been known to settle down to produce some
stunningly hypnotic recordings in his time. Following on from the
hypnagogic Dreamcell of the early Nineties, Silvermandalas opens with an
untitled track which shows a fascination for the watery sound of an
electric organ in the midst of a rising and fading wash of distended drums
and restrained electronic noise. As is to be expected, there's a cyclical
feel to the album, as loops are rearranged, entwined and revolved into
complex patterns which frequently end at a strangely distant, but conected,
point from their origins.

Sharing the same headspace as both Rolf Dammers and Holger Czukay's Canaxis
and the more reflective work of Coil (particularly "Is Suicide A
Solution"), the second track is a concoction of drifting, half-human voice
loops and snatched telephone conversation, making a particularly
disorienting piece of atmospheric ellipsis. The album is replete with the
hypnotic possibilities of varied repetition, taking minimal structures and
turning them into elongated variations on themselves - the simple tones of
mysteriously-derived samples and synthesizer sounds assume a crystalline
avian quality as a subtle bass presence makes itself known; an attenuated
tribal rhythm coalesces into the virtual sounds of impossible electronic
near-wildlife; a drone meets another as a reeded instrument sings to itself
before arrival of a phasing pulse-beat - there's an underlying feeling of
the ritually paranormal about Silvermandalas, thoguh never so gauche as to
be New Age, and too unsettling to be entirely Ambient.

By composing deeply mediatative music which draws inward before exploring
outwards into the realms of minimal psychedelic trance Electronica, Knight
has made a record which justifies its title - when the end finally comes in
a whirl of violins, rolling bleeps and gentle propulsive rhythm, it's the
culmination of a transfixing listed, like watching ripples from a skimmed
pebble which has disturbed the distended reflections of a smooth sheet of
water. Zen-like in its semi-transparency, Silvermandalas is the ideal
accompaniment to the half-sleeping state which, in some theories of
parapsychology, is when the incubi and succubi of the subconscious can
manifest themselves in modern minds as extraterrestrials. With the help of
this record, they can have a far better soundtrack than the usual
spooky-orchestral clichés they've suffered from over the years...

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