Review of In A Second Floor Window [12k1100]

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Christopher Bissonnette’s In A Second Floor Window unfolds like a quiet diary of moments observed from a secluded vantage. Building on the introspective terrain of Wayfinding (2020), this release captures a delicate psychology born from solitude, layered and distilled, then refracted through Bissonnette’s meticulously sparse soundscapes.

This isn’t an album that rushes to greet you. Rather, In A Second Floor Window is a slow turn inward, a series of glances through glass from which Bissonnette seems to both peer and retreat. Shifts between serene and uneasy, these compositions gather around an almost voyeuristic intimacy – piano tines echoing like ghosted words, pads drifting in with the ghostly beauty of distant streetlights. With each piece, Bissonnette blurs the edges, allowing accidental sounds and tonal imperfections to linger, as though leaving space for a listener’s own quiet fragments of memory.

The album’s structure mirrors the act of looking out over a familiar street and finding it estranged, as Bissonnette introduces new and unexpected textures. With each track, you feel as though you’re eavesdropping on the sounds a building might capture over time, notes settling like dust on the windowsill. In “Enclosure,” the opening track, he presents a vast soundscape with gentle layers that press against the edge of silence; each shift seems to mirror the weight of observation as it accumulates over hours. “Follower” arrives with a more tactile immediacy, as piano tones flicker like faded memories, as if Bissonnette is daring listeners to wade into this pool of desolate beauty.

But there’s a pulse, too, in the way the tracks ache toward warmth, an unfulfilled yearning to press beyond the window’s boundary. “Westerly” moves with a restrained hope, a hesitant momentum, and “Patina” feels like touching something nearly forgotten, all grainy texture and tremulous warmth. Here, Bissonnette seems to contemplate both time and fragility, drawing listeners toward the flicker of beauty within decay.

To deepen this contemplative chain, Bissonnette invited the collaborative poets MA|DE (Mark Laliberte and Jade Wallace) to respond to his tracks, resulting in poems included in the CD booklet. These reflections create a symbiosis of sound, word, and image, each element enhancing the others. The accompanying photography, too, feels like an integral part of this work’s quiet heart, offering glimpses of landscapes that seem poised on the verge of fading altogether. It’s a rare example of music, poetry, and imagery in a meditative dance – a reminder of the longing and connection that small gestures of art can inspire.

Thematically, In A Second Floor Window is about the effects of extended solitude, and it resonates on multiple levels. Bissonnette’s work manages to channel the universal ache of isolation, where days blend into one another, and time is measured by the shifting of light across a wall. Yet, as much as this is music born from confinement, it paradoxically evokes a vastness, a sense of spaciousness that softens the edges of solitude and makes room for introspection.

Bissonnette’s music is a solace for those who have made peace with being alone, who have watched light play across their walls with the reverence it deserves. In A Second Floor Window is a quiet triumph – melancholy without bitterness, reflective without pretense. It invites us not to escape our own confines, but to inhabit them fully, to see beauty in decay and grace in simplicity. This is music that doesn’t ask for much, but offers a world in return.

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