AMN Reviews: BlackWeald – The Fermi Exhibit (2023; Bandcamp)

Never one to be concise, experimental ambient artist BlackWeald has released a 5-hour cinematic space / horror set that explores the notion of Fermi’s Paradox. In short, this enigma (allegedly posed casually by physicist Enrico Fermi during lunch with other scientists) is that extraterrestrial life is almost a mathematical certainty given the size of the universe. Yet, we humans have no evidence at all that it exists. There are numerous possible explanations, such as the immense difficulty of space travel, that advanced alien civilizations have only risen recently, and whether alien life would have any interest in us.

In any event, The Fermi Exhibit is a notably varied release with its defined scope. There are elements of dark ambient, post-industrial, and noise. Found objects, drones, percussives, static, and effects are also used in an acousmatic fashion. The feel is more than a little foreboding, with haunting soundscapes, tortured quasi-vocalizations, and dialog between background and foreground elements. While largely ambient, there are bursts of activity that are hard to ignore amid the rumbling. Thus, while never pastoral, the album varies between harshness and more subtle forms of dread.

The Fermi Exhibit consists of 21 tracks, apparently intended to be used in a sound installation. The liner notes indicate that the first 13 are meant for a main hall and the remaining for an annex. The annex pieces take up the majority of the length – clocking in at over three hours – and include tracks of 43 and 103 minutes.

There are now thousands of known exoplanets, and the equations are even more in favor of some form of biological life being out there…somewhere. BlackWeald has handed us a compelling long-form piece through which to contemplate how an eventual meeting of the species might play out.