The first release by self-described Canadian ambient and drone musician Blake Gibson, “Broken Harbour” has the air about it of a meticulously considered first effort. It was recorded over a relatively long period of time – close to a year – and it sounds it too. Every aspect of the mood and tone sound carefully thought out. Each specific sound used is done so with intent. One can virtually hear the weight of the pressure to make, if not a genuine grand-artistic-statement, then at least “a record that I would want to listen to over and over again”, as Gibson muses in the press-release.

The CD captures the sound of isolation, desolation – inspired, apparently, by the Canadian wilderness. The disc thus consists of five long form variants of this theme. “Beauty in Desolation pt.1” is slowly unfolding drone with a metallic sheen to it, while “Redshift” stakes out a more ambient territory, consisting mainly of background crackling and the periodic surfacing of an ominous keyboard melody. The sound is a not exactly unfamiliar mixture of found sound and instrumentation, digitally processed, layered and stretched-out to create a sense of ethereal inhospitability – think maybe, the halfway point between Skullflower and Eluvium.

With a playing time of considerably over an hour, this is a very long release, and is, given what can only be described as its excessive polish, frankly, somewhat ponderous. It is a drone album entirely confident with its status as drone music, and as a result, entirely accomplished. Yet, it's ultimately dis-satisfactory nature is exactly this – it never wants to be anything but drone music for gazing at the stars. 6/10 -- Tim Gentles (24 February, 2010)