reviews / 2009

KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN - Taking Away

Name: KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN – Taking Away
Item: Taking Away
Rating: 6
Author: Francesco Nunziata

2009 (Digitalis ltd.)

ambient, cosmic, electronica

by Francesco Nunziata

Released in just two hundred copies on cassette, “Taking Away” marks the return of Keith Fullerton Whitman, who once again filters an acoustic guitar to produce sine waves, using them as the raw material to build the purest palettes of digital impressionism.

The cavernous depths and the solemn, crepuscular minimalism of the first side move, then, as dark as sonic tides rising and sinking, through sidereal spaces that unfurl ahead like dreamlike scenery. This is music made of spiritual filigree, whose motion, once internalised, seems to grant a strange, unsettled peace of the senses. We're in the realm of the most intimate and, at the same time, most universal cosmic music: an all-encompassing breath that the sound's calm yet austere blossoming brings to fulfilment step by step.

Decidedly less incisive, to the point of sinking the record's overall standing, the second half abandons that grave mysticism for an experiment in scattered branches of sonic events and lopsided architectures of harmonies that merge and blur into one another without leaving much to the imagination. In short, “Taking Away” is what you'd call “a record for fans only”.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

07/07/2009

Share on

This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Francesco Nunziata, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition