What a glorious pile of junk being kicked around a room. More abstracter-than-thou kitchen sinkonica from the folks over at Sedimental, Sillage features Brendan Murray and Seth Nehil. Anyone can drink a pot of coffee, get bored and record himself rubbing a piece of machinery or coaxing alien tones from whatever is lying around. Unfortunately, a lot of the time that?s exactly what makes it onto record and into my mailbox. But the duo of Sillage has put together eight pieces that will disorient and possibly harm you, but you?ll do what you so rarely do in the genre of avant-garde: listen again. There?s a immediacy throughout this album, and damn it if Nehil and Murray don?t find a way to make these tracks actual songs. They?d never admit it though, but a thread runs through the album. A few of the tracks utilize live material recorded by Keith Fullerton Whitman, and those hipster points are earned here. ?Clothes Tear? is comprised of I really have no idea what, but I could make up stuff like snapping fingers, a refrigerator hum and wind recorded through a Zack Morris cell phone. ?Underneath a Portrait? is a violent tunnel of rushing sound that somehow approaches powerful beauty before tapering into calm. The second part of ?Wake of Scent? sounds like Merzbow if he?d grow up and do something different. None of the tones in the piece are pretty, exactly, and they?re all just noise, but this is beyond a handy label like noise. In fact, this might be the only record I?ve ever heard constructed primarily of unidentifiable sound sources that could be released on a label like Kranky. Anyone who?s curious about the farther reaches of the abstract spectrum should seek this out immediately. It?s not often you can listen to music like this and drift off, and that?s an impressive feat. 9/10 -- Michael Wehunt (11 March, 2008)