Album Notes

Here's an excellent 'new' take on electric guitar ambient music. Comparing the music on this recording to anything else out there is more or less pointless. Sylken is an original and creative group. The music of Sylken is well-crafted, deeply evocative and thoroughly engaging. Amazing is all I can say ...

"Fearless", which opens the album, displays their uniqueness nicely, with its opening looped melancholic echoed guitars and soaring lead lines played over a bed of synths. Later, the track brings pulsing midtempo synth rhythms into play, along with more dramatic keyboards. The lead guitar lines sting and cry amidst this undercurrent - well engineered, I might add, with every instrument expertly-placed in the mix.

For me, the highlight of this excellent album is the third track, "Spirals". Opening with spacy synths, the cut veers straight into space-jazz territory with the blending in of brilliant subdued muted trumpet. Shimmering synths counterpoint the bluesy trumpet as Sylken takes the music in a warmer and more earthbound direction . However you add it up, it's brilliant. I can't get enough of this song. I love the juxtaposition of jazz/blues trumpet amidst all the spacier textures.

There is a serene short piano/synth piece "Island", which serves as a nice 'break' from the overall mood that permeates the CD. The music is much more textural than melodic, but it's a helluva lot more enjoyable, for me at least, than the current drone recordings which everyone else seems to orgasm over these days. Make no mistake about it - this is music. In fact, at times, it's downright beautiful (the song "Illusions" has moments, when the pealing guitar notes bounce off of sparkling synth notes, that are positively enchanting). "Sleepless" closes the album with one of the more intriguing selections - gentle rhythms accompany looped guitars, a lonely lead guitar line, and mysterioso electronic effects buried deep in the mix.

This album is ideally suited for late-night listening when you need something with more 'meat' but still firmly rooted in ambient sensibility.

~ © Bill Binkelman - Wind and Wire ~

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SYLKEN creates stunningly vital, emotionally charged music that responds to the surrounding environment and pulses with a life of it's own. Their shows are truly moving musical events, magical experiences that often leave me breathless ...

The debut album, 'Illusions Of Light' brings together seven pieces highlighting some of the different permutations of the project, and brilliantly represents the magic of SYLKEN. 'Illusions of Light' presents a perfect mixture of organic living sounds and carefully crafted synthesized tones. Subtly processed guitar glides through "Sleepless" and "First Star", trumpet sweeps through "Spirals" like the passing of angels, and exquisitely delicate synth arrangements lie underneath it all, caressing the listener. Bliss ...

~ © rik maclean - PiNG THiNGS ~

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'Illusions Of Light' is a smooth hybrid of sequences and atmospheres. The guitars surround the synth riffs. The riffs surround the drones. The drones surround the guitars. In other words, these are circular soundscapes. They are finite but they are massive. Eric's guitar smokes! This is reminiscent of old TD albums with Edgar Froese on electric guitar. This is not a TD clone or even a sound-alike. It is quite original with unique textures.

~ © Jim Brenholts - The Ambient Navigator ~

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'Illusions of Light' presents 7 tracks of very nice and delicately composed electronic ambient in which ambient guitar has a core position.

Next to the fact that the musical approach is quite daring, you also encounter vast layers of transparent and rather fluid textures. Nice cascading whirls and jangles of ambi-guitar take off at the beginning, soon accompanied by beautiful soundscapes. Mesmerizing atmospheres slowly unfold as each track takes its own direction, sometimes with a dense, minimal-oriented touch from time to time.

"Spirals" features some muted sometimes jazzy-like trumpet which is melted with shimmering, repetitive textures and piano-keys on the background. This is followed by the piano-oriented track "Islands" (which holds some new-age elements due to the use of sound of ocean waves) and the flickering ambient-guitar licks of "First Star". The last 2 tracks both clock over 10 minutes each, weaving a dreamy and relaxing atmosphere, the ambient-guitar treats reminding me a bit of David Sylvian's instrumental stuff on Gone to Earth.

All in all, this is an album full of eclectic and atmospheric music with a dash of melancholy here and there.

~ © Bert Strolenberg - KLEM magazine, The Netherlands ~