Best of 2011

 #10 - A Winged Victory for the Sullen

A Winged Victory for the Sullen is a minimalist project composed by two veterans of the genre, Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O'Halloran. I spent a lot of time this year scouring the blogosphere for minimalism because I spent a lot of time alone working and reading. Really well composed post-classical minimalism has the ability to immediately calm me down, take me somewhere else, but it can also easily melt into the background when focus is required elsewhere. If I ever found myself frustrated with tedious tasks at work, this is the album I'd throw on. If I wanted to spend a night diving into a literary classic, I knew that the beauty of this composition would set the mood without requiring my full attention, leaving me able to focus on characters and plot twists.

This doesn't mean A Winged Victory is forgettable. In fact for me it is one of the most memorable albums of the year. The instrumentation of this album may be simple, but it's used to great effect employing countless heart-stopping key changes, beautiful solemn melodies, and a sense of tension and release that can only be described as oceanic. This album moves in waves, some high, some gentle. It reminds me of sitting on a boat in the middle of a lake feeling the soft, fluid motion. And this analogy applies most effectively to the ending. When you reach the end of the final track "All Farewells are Sudden," it's as if you take that first step on to dry land after an afternoon floating directionless under the sun. It forces you to re-orient yourself. But instead of dry land, the transition is back to reality. And I'm going to be quite honest, sometimes I chose to forgo reality, hitting the repeat button instead.