Quiet Village

Silent Movie

(!K7)

Record Review by Thomas Hillard

Silent Movie is the 59 minute mind trip of a record by Quiet Village - comprised of members Matt Edwards (a.k.a. Radio Slave) and Joel Martin, who borrowed the record’s name from a 1997 release by Martin Denny (also known as the king of exotica/lounge music). The UK-based duo claim their creation takes influence from Italian film soundtracks, BBC library music, disco edits, acid rock, vintage soul, and easy listening. While all of those may not be easily validated, the variety and randomness of the combination totally eludes a clear picture of what awaits your ears on this one.

In many ways the fusion of sounds and effects in Silent Movie do evoke what could be expected of the soundtrack to an Italian silent movie. I’ll dare to say they’ve found the secret recipe that made Röyksopp’s Melody A.M. a cult classic. Somewhere in the secret sauce lies such things as the incorporation of disco beats and jazz beats with the occasional animals/sirens/speech FX. Fade that in and out with rough guitars, ambient noises, and Victrola needles popping endlessly and you too might be cast me off into a spooky world and other similar head trips. After a few songs I felt like I finally understood the direction and wildness that was in store and then “Too High To Move” lured me into deeper madness with (I’m not  surprised… ) someone laughing uncontrollably in between sections with spoken word and a loungy melodic piano in the background.
 
Silent Movie wouldn’t be caught naked on a dance floor but mixed in with any number of beats at a higher RPM I could imagine the ambient-in-your-face-FX mixture sending anyone into high grounds. Take note DJs: there’s gold in these hills! And there’s something for everyone, I can definitely hear Jason Bentley spinning “Can’t Be Beat” in a late night Metropolis show. Likewise “Victoria’s Secret” is dying to be used as a background interlude between tracks on Morning Becomes Eclectic while Nic Harcourt reads the upcoming events.
 
These guys aren’t new, but Quiet Village is definitely making their debut. The future of Quiet Village is hard to tell but they’ve set an interesting stage. There is room to go so many places from here, and with so many different angles in each song of Silent Movie I imagine they might find any number of strong points in the record to plot the way of the next record.