An Experimental and Engulfing Record from Philip Blackburn

Philip Blackburn is more than a music enthusiast; he is quite a composer and has an actual love for tone, sonic presence, and pays a lot of attention to the emotional pull that music can give you.

A lot of this is evident in his latest record, Another Intensity, which incorporates a series of pieces of music that blend natural and digital instrumentation with a graceful and almost elegant approach, giving everything a heavy-handed cinematic and spacious backbone but also pulling you into this ever engulfing world filled with highs, lows, and again, that emotional bountifulness that you end up getting attached to throughout the records unfolding.

The opening track on the record is called "In Praise of Clouds", which delivers a lot of that beautiful sonic approach with synthesizers and an orchestrated undertone, and part of what really makes this vast song so intense is that range of emotion that it sort of goes through.

There are parts of the song that feel angelic, while others feel a little haunting.

I love the roller coaster of those emotions you get with this track, while still soaking in that beautifully presented, drifting sort of soundscape that wraps itself around you so quickly.

There's a range of synths and keys used here; vocals also come into play, adding a bit more depth. It's very easy to fall right into this track, making it amazing that this is the introduction to the release.

This leads into "Dawn Chorus, Still Life", which has a bit of an eerie feel to it. There are a lot of harmonic sensations that shimmer but also have this sort of dark overtone to them. This is one of the more haunting aspects of the record itself, but I loved it because it takes you on this little journey through your own mind.

This is one of the best attributes of the record as a whole. It provides these moods by delivering all of this presence and melody. Your mind takes those moods and travels wherever it wants to.

You find your mind going all kinds of places when you listen to this kind of stuff, and it's something that Philip has been able to nail down aesthetically, giving those moods heavy-handedly, but still letting yourself take that wherever you want to.

It's strange how you can relate to different kinds of music like this, and how each listener will interpret the songs differently.

Now, there are aspects of this record that are not just ambient and experimental but also have a bit of a droning kind of vibe to them.

"Sounding Xibalba" is a perfect example of exactly that.

Utilizing percussion, scattered about, pushing that cinematic backbone even further to the forefront, adding a little bit of edginess or drive, tension, and emotional sensation.

This is accompanied by ambient synth pads that give you a distant feeling, along with bells, and more, and as the song grows, it travels to different places and takes a slightly different direction.

As one piece, it has a certain kind of fluency to it, but again, the light and dark of it fluctuate as they do on a lot of his pieces.

Perhaps the most intense and orchestrated piece on the record is "Between Two Waves of The Sea", which has robust instrumentation from orchestral feeling strings, along with synthesized elements, leys, and notes that sort of come together and create a clashing sensation.

This is probably one of the most intense pieces on the release itself and really runs the gamut of layering textures upon each other to create something robust and sort of powerful.

This song itself can swallow you whole, and that is kind of a beautiful thing, if you think about it.

You don't always come across pieces of music that are so cinematically bound and have such a unique approach to composition and growth that you easily get pulled into this completely different atmosphere. You sort of forget about your surroundings and become part of the intensity of the piece itself.

The music washes you away, and this track in particular provides a lot of that.

"Floating Beneath the Surface" feels like the aftermath of the previous track. As if getting caught between those two waves has pulled you under the water, and now you are floating beneath the surface of it all.

This sentiment is what I got from listening to those two tracks in a row, in particular. This one is dark, dreary, and given the titles of the songs and how they are composed, lets you sort of picture yourself underneath the water reaching for the surface with your hand.

I loved the kind of visuals this whole thing painted in my head. Again, other people might take it in a little differently. It is to be interpreted by each listener in their own mind, but for me, the sentiment and idea behind it all were crystal clear.

The record closes with "An Illegible Stone", which has a sense of peace to it.

This is one of the songs that comes through with a little bit more brightness and color as compared to some of the tracks on the rest of the record.

When you listen to it all the way through, you get sort of a full storyline. I really enjoyed that as well, and I feel like this is an album that really can pull you into Phillip's mind, and it all comes through so vividly.

Do not miss this one, especially if you like music that takes different places.

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