Impermanence, released now on the 24th of February, is an album dedicated to sensitivity and silence. Silberman wrote this when his hearing impairment after his previous tour with The Antlers started to recede and he was free from the continuous noise of tinnitus and oversensitive hearing on one ear. I once had a temporary hearing impairment on one ear, for a few days and even that was awful. The most uncomfortable part of it was the noise and the strain put on the other ear, which had to take in all of the noise on its own.

This article will be a ramble of personal opinion and thoughts about this album, none of which might be accurate or make sense.

Impermanence means no harm. It exists on its own, and does not at all try to force its way into your head. It is an album to listen to with headphones in the dark. It will soften your armor and warm you up. It’s not catchy, nor does it contain a snappy beat. It contains just the right amount of sounds, words and instruments. I know this is highly subjective and I’m not telling you what is good or bad music. But there is a lot to learn from this, and I will try to write it down now.

This album separates itself from most albums for me, mostly because of the way I listen to it in. It’s very similar to the way I listen to his previous albums as The Antlers: Hospice, Burst Apart and Familiars. I dive into Peter’s world; comfortably drowning in the sensitive and emotional stories which could not be told in other art forms. It would break apart if you tried adapting it in any other way. I rarely just listen to one song, and then move on to other artists and albums. The stories told depends on every sound, layer and word told in the songs, much like a perfect painting could not have a single stroke altered after its final form.

It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play

This is a quote by Miles Davis that stuck with Peter during the recording of this album. One can actually hear and feel this, with this album, that the beauty lies in the silence, between his words and his strumming guitar. This is a result of Peter realizing the value of silence. The value of what is not there. It’s not nothingness, but silence as an element.

This is something that truly fascinates me. Silence has been used as a tool before, in games such as Silent Hill, where the silence is what’s truly terrifying and not the creepy sounds or haunting music. Hayao Miyazaki also talked about the concept of “Ma”; how the Japanese actually has a word for the absence of sound, like the pause between two claps. Miazaki uses this consistently in his movies; moments between dramatic sequences, moments where both the characters and the audience gets a moment to breathe. Moments of beauty, enhanced with silence.

Peter, in a slightly different way, learned that silence is a luxury of well-calibrated perception. Again, silence is not nothingness. We should not be afraid of silence. We all need moments of silence, where we are not assailed by noises and traffic hammering on our ears. Moments when our minds and bodies gets time to actually process everything we learn, gain and achieve.

It became obvious to me why many prayers are silent, performed in immaculately quiet spaces.

Back to the point of this article. Sensitivity is not a flaw. Maybe people will say that the world is a harsh and bad place with no quarter for weakness, but sensitivity does not mean weakness in any way. Sensitivity is just looking at the world with a microscope. Looking at a seemingly smooth surface closely enough to see that it’s actually rough, and then accepting and appreciating what you see. Impermanence is recorded in a way that you’ll hear Peter’s every draw of breath (and I think I even hear his nose wheezing sometimes) the touch of his finger on the strings and the echoing of the weak, occasional drums. You‘ll hear the room when he doesn’t sing. You’ll hear the darkness and the brightness.

Peter said in a pre-release interview that Karuna (and the album itself) is him putting a microscope to a given moment in his mind, examining his thoughts, reactions and feelings in slow motion. This is where the armature of the album lies. The core of what (I think) Silberman is trying to say. Lowering the level of the bar, so that any change, any movement will be truly felt.

This album is a dedication to sensitivity as a personality trait.

If you get tired of people easily, if you get tired of noise, traffic, loud music, tv-clamour and chatter, this album is for you.

If people’s words sometimes feels like sharp arrows, if you are jolted off balance by the slightest changes and movements around you, if going out the door sometimes requires more strength than usual and

if social invitations and obligations is like a sudden nudge in the opposite direction, this album is for you.

It is not a cure itself for any pain or uncertainties you may go through, but it embraces us like a blanket of comfort and presents us with a hope and another way to think about changing the conditions and state of affairs instead.

I hope it can provide some comfort to those of us grappling with transition, which is, undoubtedly, all of us.

Thank you Peter, for a brilliant album.

Sources:

http://www.anti.com/artists/peter-silberman/

http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2016/12/01/503879202/all-songs-1-peter-silberman-on-compassion-impermanence-and-hearing-loss