Decay, disconnection, and disjuncture have been core elements in Jayden Barber’s evolving soundscapes. Etching himself space in the world of drone-influenced, noise-inflected ambient music, his recent work continues to explore intense emotional states through sound. His sonic world is one where heaviness meets fragility, engulfing listeners in an overwhelming sense of unease, as seen in past releases. In his latest offering, ‘Sparks Of Consciousness In The Dying Brain’, Barber builds upon these themes, pushing further into the subtle contrast of dissonant and complementary sounds.
CHECK OUT OUR PREVIOUS REVIEW OF ‘ARABIAN NIGHT LIGHTS’ BY JAYDEN BARBER
The sense of decay is especially stark on ‘Sparks Of Consciousness In The Dying Brain’. Across two extended tape loop pieces – titled “1.1” and “1.2” – Barber evokes an atmosphere of deterioration, entropy, and time’s irreversible decay. The “sparks of consciousness” emanating from the barely saved audio that opens either track. Both of which deteriorate into brief moments of white noise and nothingness before quickly and subtly giving way to melodic counterpoints.
The “heavy scary ambient that flows like a bad and inescapable nightmare” that we heard on ‘Arabian Night Lights’ is less apparent here. A feeling of darkness remains, but it has the bewildering and uncontrollable feeling of being weightless in space, rather than overpowering oppression.
Much like William Basinski’s ‘The Disintegration Loops’, these two tracks chart the slow disintegration of sound as it’s left to its own devices. However, where Basinski’s work was mournfully rooted in the aftermath of 9/11, Barber’s approach is more clinical. The album is, in essence, a living documentation of sonic entropy. Track “1.1” was recorded on June 22, 2024, when the loop was first constructed, and “1.2” was captured on July 28, 2024, after the tape had undergone a month of deterioration at the AS220 installation.
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The shifts between these two recordings are subtle but profound. In “1.1”, you hear the delicate clarity and drawn-out tones of the original loop. There’s a feeling of weightless beauty and impermanence that you get when ambient music is at its most effective. By the time we reach “1.2”, these feelings are obscured by layers of crackle, and distortion. It struggles like the warped sound of an analog radio with patchy reception.
Barber’s decision to use decaying tape loops here isn’t just an aesthetic choice—it speaks directly to the album’s title. Sparks Of Consciousness In The Dying Brain suggests a flicker of awareness amid cognitive decline, perhaps the final moments of lucidity before collapse into oblivion. The tape’s degradation symbolising the gradual fading of memories or thoughts, leaving only distorted and incomplete fragments behind. Doing so without grandiose shifts or dramatic climaxes, just the slow and steady erosion of time and these loops.
Mastered by Seth Manchester and paired with Boris Apple’s minimalist cover shot, this album feels like a deliberate study in decline. For listeners who enjoy the patient unravelling of sound, ‘Sparks Of Consciousness In The Dying Brain’ offers a quietly meaningful experience. It’s a sonic meditation on the passage of time, memory, and the slow surrender to entropy.
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