The Silent Ballet

i would like to take a moment to spotlight another interesting compilation series which i stumbled onto a while back: The Silent Ballet compilations, a collaboration from the indie rock website of the same name, and the Lost Children netlabel. breaking the electronic mould of most netlabels, Lost Children features [mostly] instrumental indie/shoegazer/post-rock from a host of bands around the world. there are quite a few gems to be discovered here. unfortunately, Lost Children could use a bit more quality control, as there are some rather awful tracks in the series as well. however, fans of heartfelt soft/loud emotional energy (queue references to bands such as explosions in the sky, mogwai, godspeed you black emperor, m83 etc) will find much to be enjoyed in The Silent Ballet series. in my opinion, the most recent installment of the series is the strongest yet. it starts out slowly, with a very long introduction of two minimal guitar-based ambient tracks. however, in the later tracks the energy slowly builds to the exploding crescendos we expect. in my opinion, many of the tracks never quite reach their full potential-- i am frequently left wanting more, but all in all, the bands and the netlabel show some real promise, and there are some quite breathtaking moments to be enjoyed here.