Stars Of The Lid – Stars Of The Lid And Their Refinement Of The Decline

Stars of the lid is a musical outcome of Brian Mcbride and Adam Wiltzie. The duo are known for producing and specializing ambient drone music. They are signed to Kranky record label – home to music artists like Grouper and Tim Hecker.

Stars of the lid And their refinement of the decline is their lastest album of 19 tracks released on Kranky label. The album features tiresome work of piano, violins and drone effects. The albums’s vitality lies in the long breaks of sounds and then reverberating it again and again.

The Tired sounds of stars of the lid contains lush soundscapes whereas Stars of the lid and their refinement of the decline has beatless soundscapes and relaxed reverbs. The album is made very carefully and it gives out a flux of equanimity to the listeners. Emphasis is done on the build up of each tracks where one can take heed of how different sounds overlap each other. The soft sounds of this album is a testimony of giving satisfaction to the listeners. It is best suited to listen while studying as a background music or while taking long walks.

Apart from this project, the duo continues to work as solo musicians. Adam has a project with Piano based musician Dustin o’ Halloran named A Winged Victory For The Sullen and Brian has his own two albums.

If you don't like this album, we can't be friends.

Occasionally in my life i've saturated myself with ambient( or so called ones) music,so i've had my share.The worst thing that can happen with this "genre" is to feel lacking of energy and being monotonous...Unfortunately for this album this is allmost(but not entirely) the case...

This may actually be the best album I have ever heard. I am in total awe and have been there since it was released, coming up on 6 years ago. Some things will continue to knock you down, some things will continue to baffle and elude you. Like an unsolved mystery, I get lost in the details and facts of the album and threaten the order and understanding of my life for the sake of an eternal thinker's euphoria. Every single time; it has never failed.

Music this organically seamless, immaculately orchestrated and relentlessly immersive and awe-striking just about never gets made because it is simply impossible to. Therefore, Wiltzie and McBride receive my respect for delivering an audio experience that I did not know was possible until the lush sustain of their tones first reached my ears and thought process. It's an enlightened discovery located somewhere out there, just waiting to be stumbled across, in the true avant garde tradition.

I've made this way too easy for you. The rest has to be yours

Totally overrated album...

It seems that I've been lately in a "chill out" mode, talking up Somnia, Hidden Shoal, and Darla labels, so it only makes sense that I turn my attention to Kranky once again. Two disks full of ambient bliss come from this Chicago label, giving us yet another quality release from Austin based guitarists Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride, also known as the Stars Of The Lid. The latest SOTL release, And Their Refinement Of The Decline, is much more than a collection of drone-based ambient textures. It is indisputably modern classical in nature, where acoustic sounds stand out in front of the curtain of beatless soundscapes. The waves of pads and strings gently swell in dynamics towards the perfectly groomed and endless playa del sonido. These cycles of calmness retreat and repeat, as does everything else in the universe. Some critics may snicker at the genre, reminding them of massage parlors and yoga studios. But that may be because their mind is over polluted with thoughts - the daily noise that always promises a better tomorrow. But only if they pause and really listen, they would locate the present moment and the peace that lies within, with Stars Of The Lid providing the ideal accompaniment. In the world of contemporary ambient composition few excel in continuous evolution of sound. Stars Of The Lid is at the frontier, along with Hammock, The World on Higher Downs, Fennesz, Bitcrush and William Basinski. Their latest album reasserts once again, that Wiltzie and McBride are indeed the stars of our own personal cinema, located somewhere between the eye and the eyelid.