Jenks Miller
Spirit Signal
2 1/2 Stars
Ambient
Instrumentally sparse, experimental Chapel Hill guitarist Jenks Miller pushes the boundaries of ambient music on his album Spirit Signal. Unfortunately, what little instrumentation there is is not engaging enough to keep listeners interested for 43 minutes. Although Miller has many interesting ideas on the record, none of them are well-executed.
Spirit Signal is a sonically challenging album. Many of the guitar tones Miller employs are piercing and almost painful. Every song has a some sort of feedback or buzzing in the background, but rarely do these noises add a worthwhile element to the music.
The album’s greatest weakness is its lack of movement. Often Miller has great guitar concepts, but he dwells on them for far too long. The guitar riffs on Spirit Signal, most notably on the album’s 22-minute closer “Miró,” can last for minutes without changing. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, without any other instrumentation the guitar riffs lose novelty quickly. Even for ambient music, the songs feel stagnant and lack the evolution necessary to capture the listener’s attention.
“By the Haw,” Spirit Signal’s shortest track — and the only one to not feature guitar, is a nice change of pace from the rest of the album. The song is much more laid back and does away with the intensity of the other tracks. But yet again, lack of movement stagnates “By the Haw.” And like many other of the songs on Spirit Signal, it fails to stand out.
Miller is chock full of interesting ideas and concepts regarding ambient music. Unfortunately, these ideals aren’t fully fleshed out, and Spirit Signal comes across more like a demo than a proper LP.
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