Borer Treetops - Loud Silence

Borer Treetops

Loud Silence
​self-released; 2021

3.7 out of 5

By Matt Jensen

Borer Treetops is an electronic pop project from Cambridge, UK. I'm fairly sure it’s a one man project but that’s not how the artist prefers to describe it. The artist mentions: “It is really a one-man project with Roberto being behind both lyrics and music. However, the composition process comes from a wide range of people met and situations lived, so Borer Treetops prefer to be referred to using the plural form.”

The music on Loud Silence sounded like bedroom psych to my ears. It’s psychedelic sounding and most of the instrumentation seemed to come from a laptop and had that type of in the box quality. 

“In My Dreams” is up first. It begins with some synths which basically sounded like sine waves and electronic piano and drums come in. His accent was very noticeable but sounded good to me. The song is catchy and fairly straightforward.

“Addictions” is up next and overall the aesthetics were very similar to the first song. It’s also a pretty catchy song. He has more success with “Maldives” and “Unspoken.” “A Day In London” is again catchy and airy while “The Green Maze” has some of the most notable instrumental melodies. “Locked Out,” “Everything Reminds Me of You” and “Don’t Leave (feat. il Bakersville)” get a little more emotive and pensive.

My main critique was the instrumentation lacked the dynamics of a band playing a room and just had that overall sound of virtual instruments. As an engineer myself it just sounds a bit narrow compared to musicians playing together.

The things I enjoyed most were the cohesiveness of the songs. He really does a great job utilizing a limited palette of sounds which in my opinion makes the album feel more uniform. The melodies were quite memorable and there’s a nice mix of introspective lyrics and hopeful sentiment. 

​This was a solid release and I think fans of bands like Tame Impala, Ariel Pink and other like minded bands might enjoy.

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