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Item: Perception (Bliss Out, Volume 4)
Author: Jason Morehead

Perception (Bliss Out, Volume 4)

(1997)

Reviewed by Jason Morehead

Discogs Apple Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label Darla RecordsOpus2002

ambient shoegaze

Originally published at Opus

After I got this album, this was about all I listened to for a couple days. I listened to it at work (probably to the chagrin of my office chums). I listened to it at home, much to the chagrin of my roommates, who see this as just noise. I listened to it while I studied, which is rare, since I normally require absolute silence when I study. And if I had a stereo in my bedroom, I would've listened to it while I slept.

All 4 tracks combine these elements; soaring washes of dirty, gritty guitar drone, moog drippings and droopings, a rainstorm, and a church choir. Doesn't sound like too much, huh? Perception's strength lies in the fact that it takes these 4 seemingly unrelated sound sources and combines them into glorious music. Well, "music" may not be the right word. Rather, they are huge vistas of sound that just hover there like monoliths, dominating your hearing.

At times, the sounds just fade away into the distance, the noodling of moog knobs the only real activity. Melodies, courtesy of the moogs, form just on the edge of things, but slowly disappear, as the guitar drone and noise begins to rise and grow. But it grows oh so slowly. Soon, your ears are filled with the deafening sounds that are probably akin to having a thunderstorm fill your head.

The use of the rainstorm and the choir adds a certain grey gloom to the whole thing, like watching the rain fall down just outside of your window all day while you're wrapped up in a nice warm blanket. Open up your windows and let the grey skies in.