Stille by Francis M. Gri
The latest release from Bristol’s Mailbox Records is a reflective and hopeful EP which explores a still uncertain future by unearthing beauty in imperfection
As each new day of summer passes by during another year of global disquietude, the fourth release by Mailbox in 2021 is an understated beauty of an EP by musician and label owner, Francis M. Gri – Stille – which translates as silence, a quiet stillness, across a number of languages.
Recorded towards the end of winter 2020, Stille’s release during this year’s midpoint is apt because there is an apparent sense of seasons and moods shifting within each of the EP’s four parts.
Gri wrote, “I wanted to try and reflect the mood of what is currently a very uncertain period: reclusion, apathy, and the feeling of going forward into a blurry future.” Gri captures this mood through a subtle movement that plays out in slow motion, or even at times in reverse, showing how our recent uncertain past can muddy the present and the way ahead.
Many sounds found on Stille are “dirty, imperfect and perhaps broken in some sort of way”. Despite this, there is always something to admire in music which unearths the beauty in imperfection. Delicate melodies of guitars and piano, plus the ethereal vocals of Lilium ebbing and flowing in and out across its 20 minutes, play their own part of the whole piece – creating different colours and tones as each one passes over another.
‘Part 1’ perhaps signals a symbolic loss, as high-pitched feedback gradually allows a melodic yet melancholic acoustic guitar line to emerge from a background fugue. It feels like a reemergence from a slow walk West by a lonely figure taking tentative steps back from an interior desert space. Perhaps like the whole world after enduring this period of uncertainty, the faceless figure found in the album art is looking outwards for answers again.
I can’t help but be stirred by memories of Wim Wenders’ Paris Texas (1984) – not just its transcendent guitar score by Ry Cooder but also its themes of personal identity, sanctuary and transition – echoing the disassociated state the drifter Travis found himself in, attempting to reconnect with family and society again after a walkabout in the desert.
Stille could be read as a road movie in four parts, albeit one where a journey takes place on foot and through gauzy memories. The mood of each part of the EP seems to symbolise a changing of time – from dawn to dusk. There is constant contrast: completeness and brokenness, beauty and imperfection, melodies and vocal lines forming and competing with rising and falling feedback.
‘Part 2’ continues the search for an identity. As before, an acoustic guitar shares a conversation with other shifting elements including a yearning piano motif, gentle loops and tonal manipulation. Everything is pulled along by the ethereal vocal loops provided by Lilium, which might be echoes of the past or a call to look towards where hope may be found.
This feels like music for and about dusty landscapes, viewed at half light. It feels earthy, of the ground. The colour palette brings us back to seasons: at times all golden browns and yellows, at others the fresh pastel smudginess spring mornings can bring. This is music that muddies the lines of time, but also seems to embrace nature’s power to heal.
There is renewed optimism through the first half of ‘Part 3’ with its gorgeous guitar lines twinkling through dappled sunlight before pausing … and coming back to life again with a sudden intake of breath and breaking away for a more subdued and heavier second half. Time and perhaps perspective is now shifting – edging towards twilight or falling back into a memory.
‘Part 4’ begins with greater dissociation, where wordless ripples circle one another before tactile layers slowly rise up towards the sky. This includes a Cooder-esque guitar line carving a pathway through clouds of feedback and pockets of firecrackers before fading away and returning us to silence.
This EP is meditative music edging us closer to explore a still uncertain future armed with a pocketful of hope. Stille is a gentle tonic to encourage our hearts to swell with awe again as we look out towards the horizon and take our next step forward – wherever this may lead us.
Stille by Francis M. Gri is available to buy digitally through Mailbox’s Bandcamp.
Explore KrysaliSound’s deep back catalogue which includes these fantastic recent releases: Francesco Maria Narcisi – Voluta; Ishmael Cormack – Fennec; and Francis M. Gri – Drop Series 2020.
