Sieren – Transients of Light

By Ryan G

Words: Ryan Getz

For someone that enjoys this genre so much, you’d think I’d have a better handle of the vernacular associated with it. I’m talking about that weird place occupied by IDM, downtempo, chillwave, and the like. Sieren occupies that sphere.

Transients of Light makes me think of many things. Clubs in Austin, Texas. Water. The quiet passage of life. Hypnosis.

The beauty of music is oft the random streams of consciousness it produces. And I’m not trying to be pretentious. This music isn’t trying to be pretentious either.

Here’s what I mean about the music being pretentious (or not). Critically acclaimed electronic music can sometimes over peoples heads – an example being my feeble attempt at digesting the Floating Points record that made several best of lists last year. Jon Hopkins was a little easier to digest, and Sieren warmly carresses me in ways that the two other examples do not. I’m not trying to be sensual – just convey the warm tones that Transients of Light communicates so well.

The warm music oddly gels with the moniker this composer chose – not meant to be a play on words but simply assuming his mother’s maiden name. Yet like a siren, this music hypnotises you over the proverbial waters – yet there are no rocks of peril in sight. Case in point – “Chroma,” a seven-minute epic, went by quickly and slowly at once. Like a smooth airplane ride, I am lulled to relaxation (could have been sleep, had I been a bit more tired) and I arrive at my destination quickly. The destination is grooves that are a bit more pronounced. These uptempo moments come and go, but hit home in an especially satisfying way in “Frozen Light.”  Sieren conveys a sense of time itself standing still – kind of a reverse theory of relativity.

Man, these figures of speech keep sneaking up on me! Again not trying to be pretentious.

The Berlin producer has definitely pleasantly surprised me. And I had that thought only about halfway through the record. On “Mountain Flare,” the change in mood to that of a love song (though expressed without words), I had that thought again.

Maybe you’ll have those thoughts, too.

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Score: 4/5

Sieren: Facebook

 

 

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