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Wyndel Hunt: "Sunshine Noir"

  Tobias

Drumroll forever. Just one chord, seemingly sustained into infinity. The moment you get used to it and try to figure out the sonic nuances, they immediately fade away before you can come to any conclusions. And then there is an abrupt ending. Someone just pulled the plug. Nothing... just a momentous and overpowering silence... it almost hurts, and its name is „Sumud“.

Wyndel Hunt is a master of loops, and that is just what he's demonstrating on this CD. Within his creations, there is sometimes no more than a single theme, a harmony that is nothing but pure sound. It’s pushing through the piece in varying degrees of loudness, chiming with electronically created timbres that once in a while rise to the fore only to fade away again. But even then, they remain forever present in the background.

And that’s not all: Once can distinctly perceive percussion, almost cosmic and intergalactic refrains, telling unknown tales of civilizations living far, far away. Or what is it…? The sounds seemingly creep into your imagination, taking possession of your brain and the resources one have stored right there only to find that there is nothing comparable yet… No reference points… no prior experiences… this is an entirely new musical terrain with unknown valleys, oceans, mountains and prairies that need to be discovered. It really is so alien that at a first listen, a constant reflection sets in, a kind of a control mechanism, that can’t be stopped or switched off. Occasionally, a track will drift back into familiar territory. But a mere second later, all sounds effortlessly turn around and hitchhike back into an unexplored wilderness.

Hunt has arrived at a powerful work for sonic purists and a carefully crafted piece of art. Personally, I felt as though an element of poetry were missing from these tracks. Then again, maybe is doesn’t even have a rightful place here. And I will certainly not abate the album by insisting on my personal preferences. Besides, quite a few listeners have already arrived at different conclusions. What matters in the end is that „Sunshine Noire“ has ended up a work that truly caters to a nostalgic ideal: That there can still be such a thing as „new music“. 

By Fred M. Wheeler

Homepage: Wyndel Hunt
Homepage: Dragon's Eye Records