Robert Scott Thompson - The Silent Shore
Just before leaving the house at 5.30AM on Sunday 30th August, to go to the hospital where our first child Nova would be born just ten hours later, I grabbed the stack of CD's assigned to me by electronicmusic.com to review. In it was a recording by Robert Scott Thompson called The Silent Shore which would ultimately become the first music Nova would ever hear, over and over again for the three days we all spent in Swedish Hospital in downtown Seattle before returning home.
None of the other CD's even came close to pacifying the newborn and her dazed parents, even though there were a few other ambient albums in there. With its deep and enchanting themes offset by sounds evoking images of some far distant place and time, The Silent Shore became the music which helped define those first precious moments.
Released on the Mirage label, out of Toronto, Canada, Silent Shore is one of a couple of works by Thompson, all of which feature the same otherworld themes and atmospherics.
We'll be putting together a showcase of all the label's releases in the near future, with brief descriptions and links to a retailer, but in the meantime you won't go far wrong in checking out this great example of modern ambient music.
Rating - 971,544 (out of a possible 1,000,000)
