It’s been nearly 20 years since Stars of the Lid released new music, and yet it still resonates as if it were only yesterday. And Their Refinement of the Decline remains one of the most impressive albums in the history of music—built from drone, minimalism, and ambient textures, yet unfolding so openly and invitingly, like a fog slowly spreading as you listen. Since then, Stars of the Lid have remained silent.
Two years ago, Brian McBride passed away. The question of a new album by the duo is now more complicated than ever. (According to interview statements from Wiltzie, there may still be unreleased material from the 2010s.) The duo’s debut Music for Nitrous Oxide was released almost exactly 30 years ago and is now being reissued on vinyl for the first time.
Wiltzie, meanwhile, has remained musically active through various other projects. Born in 1969, the American artist has been closely associated with labels such as Kranky and Erased Tapes and has collaborated on The Dead Texan, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, and Aix Em Klemm. He now lives in Brussels, and his most recent solo release, Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal, is still echoing outward.
Delicate Weight
The nine pieces feel heavier and more tangible—more forceful—and once again draw from the in-between spaces of consciousness. This is music to sink into, to let yourself drift with. One track is titled »As Above Perhaps So Below«—and that’s as much direction as you’re going to get. This is definitely drone: delicately brutal and brutally delicate. Wiltzie himself calls it a headphone record. And indeed: after these pieces, silence feels different. Your understanding of what music can be is altered. It feels more real than all the noise that brays and thunders beyond the window. Wiltzie creates sonic beauty. And any wait for new music involving him feels entirely justified by that.
We asked Adam Wiltzie to share ten albums that have shaped, refined, and inspired him.
Adam Wiltzie: What is dead may never die, so we cannot allow it to be lost on us. This was early learning of the importance of the crescendo/decresendo concept which became the whole concept on how i still create music. May you sleep in bliss for eternity, Ennio.
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Adam Wiltzie: More proof that smoking some weed & turning on a delay pedal can achieve astonishing results. Entirely overlooked trumpet player from the Miles Davis era.
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Adam Wiltzie: The great bald one, who is actually half Belgian & i am forever rhythmically alligned w/his character. Almost impossible to choose just one from the 70’s era.
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Adam Wiltzie: I had just graduated High School in Santa Fe New Mexico, was completely broke & homeless. i had a cassette copy of this gem & it literally kept me alive for the next year. Rest in peace, Harold.
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Adam Wiltzie: Physical artefact from my childhood that taught me that revolutionary experimentation & improvisation could yield gripping, unforgettable art.
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Adam Wiltzie: The kings of collage & burning a million quid in a field full of sheep created a masterpiece of the sample heavy dreamscape. And the good news is you can still buy bootleg vinyl copies direct from the band themselves, so it seems old habits die hard.
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Adam Wiltzie: These beautiful gents took the work seriously, but not themselves seriously. To be clear now almost 30 yrs ago i had it up to here with the various artist type & then they entered my life in Houston Texas at an early Stars Of the Lid show, still one of the best concerts i have ever experienced, but my research continues.
Redaktion Sebastian Hinz
Adam Wiltzie: Nobody is creating decent solo piano music anymore, only this sad piano vortex garbage that is polluting your algorithm. This was the first record i fell in love with after our chance meeting in Italy back in 2007. Can i say »f**k piano day«? I suppose this is getting translated into the beloved German, so why not.
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Adam Wiltzie:Zunächst eine Anmerkung: Wenn ich »wir« sage, meine ich auch Dustin, da wir beide diese Aufnahme sehr genossen haben und es sich außerdem um ein Vinyl-Geschenk zum 50. Geburtstag handelte, was auch immer das für unsere Gemeinschaft der Unglücklichen bedeuten mag. Ich habe zum ersten Mal von Eddies Comeback während der Aufnahmen zu »Invisible Cities« von unserer Band A Winged Victory For The Sullen gehört. Ich werde gar nicht erst auf seinen Erfolg in den frühen Neunzigern mit Charles & Eddie eingehen oder darauf, wo er 20 Jahre lang verschwunden war, bevor er in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, wieder auftauchte. Mr. Chacon hat zusammen mit dem Produzenten John Carrol Kirby ein Gefühl von kathartischer Einfachheit geschaffen. Es passiert nicht viel, nur ein trauriger Vater-Falsett, ein Fender Rhodes und ein Moog – offensichtlich zwei Menschen, die in diesen bitteren Zeiten eine unbestreitbare Verbindung zueinander haben. Ein exquisites Gebräu für die Apokalypse…
Sebastian Hinz
