I was able to listen to Untitled II on my way up to visit friends at James Madison University, about a two hour ride north from where I go to college. Driving straight through the heart of the Shenandoah Valley of southwestern Virginia, with fall in full bloom and trees seemingly on fire with the changing color of their leaves, I started to listen the album. I drove by abandoned gas stations, small towns, and the desolate landscape of the mountains on a rainy night with the sounds of Untitled II flooding into my head, almost playing along with the scenes coming from outside my car window. Once the sounds were in my head, they demanded that I pay attention, and the CD was vacant from my car stereo for a total of about an hour of a four hour round trip. The CD was literally hot to the touch when I brought it out and put it back in its case. This is the basic effect Sparrows Swarm and Sing has on their listener.
Simply put, Untitled II is one of the most beautiful, atmospheric, abstract, and haunting instrumental releases in the past two years. Previously released in January of 2005 as either CD-R or vinyl formats, Perpetual Motion Machine has taken Sparrows Swarm and Sing's second album and made it available again to those not lucky enough to get their hands on the album when it was first released.
A three song epic, Untitled II is a thirty minute lesson on how to instrumentally shock the listener into the realization of just how beautiful music can be. The album is a collection of instruments from the basic guitars and percussion to violins, cellos, xylophones, and various other forms of instrumentation to form a complete album that will make you just sit back and smile at the talent and creativity Sparrows Swarm and Sing brings to the table.
Sparrows Swarm and Sing seems to create intricate problems through their music, and bit by bit they are able to find a find the answers and bring peace to their music, whether it be through a crashing crescendo of noise, or a calm resolution though a few notes of the cello. There always seems to be a resolution though, as Sparrows Swarm and Sing is able to guide their vessel of music through some of the stormiest of seas, creating amazingly haunting and at times frightening climaxes of drums and violin, and then they are able to burst out of the clouds into rays of sunlight and calmer times.
Whether you want it to or not, Untitled II grabs your attention, very slowly at first, and then gradually rising to the point where it forces you to abandon anything else you were previously doing and devote your attention to the music coming through your ears. Considering what you'll be hearing, abandoning all hope of anything else but the music may not be such a bad thing.
