Much water has passed through the river since I reviewed the debut CD of Son Of Clay, aka Andreas Bertilsson (see Vital Weekly 355). I wasn\'t too blown away by the result, even when the concept sounded really nice: sampling sounds from the environment (windows, doors, balcony), but the result walked too much common ground. \"The Bird You Never Were\" however is a big step forward. Still using field recordings, such as squakey chairs, are argumented by the use of acoustic instruments, mainly guitar, clarinet and percussion. These instruments provide gliding textural tones, which add a nice brooding atmospheric sound to the music. Among his influences, Son Of Clay sites Talk Talk, and I see a reference to Talk Talk\'s \'Spirit Of Eden\': similar melancholic sounds, that sustain all the way, until the end, but with Son Of Clay even more embedded in a modern classical approach. Small, miniature like but complex compositions that evoke, each, its own sense of beauty. On the fringes of sound art (execution of sound material), modern classical composed music (in it\'s complexity) and popmusic (it\'s shortness in music). This new CD blows the previous completely away.
