I Kept Waiting for a Second Sound
《Whispers of Pure Solitude》
It was only when I reached the third track that I realized a sound had never come out.
Those empty spaces earlier, I had thought they were silence. Only later did I realize silence doesn't leave gaps of that shape. Those spaces were too neat, so neat they seemed left specially for someone.
〈Prelude of Fading Light〉
After the first note fell, it was a long time before a second one.
So long that I thought it was over. Just as my hand reached out to press stop, the second note came in.
Then another long wait.
I slowly adapted to this way of breathing. Every note insisted on waiting for the previous one to completely fade away before appearing. They did not overlap, did not hold hands, did not catch each other. Like someone turning off lights, turning off one, standing and waiting for their eyes to adjust, before going to turn off the next.
No one was in a rush.
The brightest spot was right at the beginning. While I was still waiting for it to shine bright again, it had already retreated far away.
What the first track told me was: from now on, there will be less and less.
〈Echoes in the Silent Corridor〉
If you shout into a valley, the returning sound will grow quieter and quieter.
That in itself is a comfort. It tells you that things will pass, will fade, will stop.
The echo in this track does not grow quieter.
The same thing returns, just as loud. Returning again, still just as loud. I kept waiting for it to weaken, waiting for it to tire, waiting for it to finally scatter.
It did not. It returned with the same force, time and time again.
Halfway through, I felt a slight panic. Because an echo that refuses to grow quiet no longer feels like an echo. An echo is your own sound coming back to find you. This felt like someone on the other side, answering over and over at the exact same volume.
I pressed my ear close, trying to hear if it was another.
It was not. Still only one.
In the end, it didn't fade away slowly either. It simply stopped, suddenly stopping while it still had strength left. It hadn't reached the end; it just stopped walking.
〈Nocturne in Minor Frequencies〉
A nocturne should be for those who cannot sleep. Slow, spacious, allowing you to rest your breathing inside.
This track did not stop from beginning to end.
One following another, chasing closely, without even space to catch a breath in between. Like someone pacing back and forth in a tiny room, back and forth, steering clear of every corner where one could sit.
A nocturne that cannot sleep.
And right here, something sank down.
I cannot describe what it was. The whole track was a bit lower than the previous two, a bit darker, like the surface of water pressed down by one notch. I waited for it to spring back up.
It did not.
Only later did I realize that every track that followed remained at this height. It didn't drop and climb back up; it simply moved to a new place to live.
〈Shadows on Fading Strings〉
That sound finally came out.
And it was the only time.
I had waited for three tracks. Those neat empty spaces earlier were all reserved for it.
Yet the moment it opened its mouth, it was already retreating.
Its strength grew weaker section by section, rising a few times in between as if still wanting to say something, but every time lower than the last.
In that final half minute, it was almost no longer there. I turned up the volume, wanting to confirm it was still there.
It was still there. Just very far away.
In the whole album, only this track ended this way. The other five all stopped; only this one scattered.
A shadow always lingers a little longer than what casts it. You remove your hand, the dark patch on the wall remains, and only then do you remember you were never supposed to exist.
After that, it never spoke on its own initiative again.
〈Distance Between Stars〉
This track was the fastest.
I didn't expect it. Pieces about distance, I thought they would be slow, drawn out, making you feel the remoteness in the waiting.
Instead, it was urgent. It rushed. As if trying to catch up to something with speed.
Then in the middle, nothing was left.
A dozen seconds or so. Not becoming quiet. Silence is also a sound, you can hear it being silent. Here, there wasn't even silence.
Those dozen seconds were the most honest part of the whole album.
Because distance is not measured by length. No matter how fast you run, that stretch in between remains just as empty. That is how stars look at each other, each shining with all its strength, separated by a space where nothing exists, without feeling anything wrong with that at all.
Later the sound returned, still at that same speed.
It offered no explanation for those dozen seconds.
〈Serenade of the Solitary Earth〉
A serenade is meant to be sung to someone.
You stand beneath someone's window, sending your song upward. There must be someone inside the window for it to mean anything.
Yet this track is sung to a solitary Earth.
I kept waiting for it to return. Waiting for what had sunk to float back up, waiting for the light to return, waiting for that sound to speak once more. After all, this was the last track; having listened for half an hour, it ought to give something back.
It did not return.
Still so low, still so dark.
Yet it was freer than any track before it. In places it was so light it was almost unheard, in places the entire room resounded. Rising and falling, slow and long, like a person finally daring to breathe deeply.
There was another thing I only noticed after listening for a long time.
Those neat empty spaces earlier were gone in this track.
It no longer left gaps; it used up every available space, leaving nothing open for anyone anymore.
That sound was still beside it. It had been there all along.
Only no longer waited for.
After the music stopped, I sat for a while longer.
I could never tell solitude and loneliness apart. After listening to these six tracks, I finally know the difference.
Loneliness is someone missing. The shape of loneliness is a hole: someone should have taken the next line but didn't, so you leave space, you wait, you turn up the volume to confirm they are still there. The first four tracks were all doing this.
Solitude is not. Solitude is when only you are left, and that is enough.
From beginning to end, this album did not bring back the light, did not fill those dozen seconds in the middle, did not let that sound speak once more.
I had thought it was reluctant to let go.
Only later did I understand that it simply didn't feel those spaces needed filling.
It wasn't that it couldn't be cured. There was never any illness to begin with.
That is why the last track was a serenade. Something meant to be sung to someone, yet sung to a solitary Earth. Not sung to someone who left, not sung to anyone behind a window, but sung to the matter itself.
Pure solitude. Pure means unmixed with loneliness, unmixed with waiting, unmixed with "if only back then".
The sound that never came did not come in the end either.
And after listening to it all, I didn't feel anything was missing at all.