PRE-ORDER ITEM : Expected
January 1st 1970.
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‘Exercises’ is an eight-song record composed by CFCF (Mike Silver to his mum) at home in Montreal. With modernist architect Louis Kahn’s monumental Exeter Academy library on the cover, and taking melodic inspiration from Phillip Glass, the record is imbued with a mid-century sense of idealistic purpose and tactful simplicity.
Constructed out of soft, subtly phasing keyboard phrases and concentric melodic gestures, each track employs different techniques taken from modern classical, ambient and kosimische music, but what’s particularly impressive is the way Mike has harnessed this radical energy into a pop realm. Opener “1 (Entry)” lures us in with a melancholy bed of synths, while standout “3 (Building)”‘s rolling piano melodies build to a cathartic crescendo. The lone vocal piece, “5 (September)”, is a cover of the opener to David Sylvian’s ‘Secrets of the Beehive’ album, refitted with 2-step percussion and wintry pads. The result is a hyper-personal, lighter-than-air set of harmonic sketches that is one of the most cinematic and evocative releases of the year. Click on the soundcloud link below to hear 'Exercises' in its entirety.
Based in Montreal, Silver took the name CFCF from the call sign of the city’s CFCF-TV. His debut LP, ‘Continent’, was an impressive collage of vintage electronic textures evoking grandiose landscapes worthy of a Michael Mann film. He has remixed Aaliyah, Sally Shapiro and Crystal Castles, played with Caribou, Oneohtrix Point Never and Animal Collective and DJed with the likes of Hercules and Love Affair and The Juan MacLean among many others.