Christopher Bissonnette Returns with 'Essays in Idleness' for Kranky

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Mar 6, 2014

Six years on from ambient electronic artist Christopher Bissonnette's last solo set for Kranky Records, In Between Words, he's announced the follow-up. Titled Essays in Idleness, it hits retailers April 7.

A press release explains that the Canadian composer had worked on this latest set for two years, using but a self-built analogue synthesizer to plot out his soundscapes.


"The album is a series of experiments subsequent to a period of deep reflection on my working process," Bissonnette outlined in a statement. "This sequence of tracks is the culmination of two years of intense exploration with the intention of allowing the medium to have a more profound effect on the outcome, the methodology allowing chance, risk and error to play a greater role."

The eight-song set is said to feature a tapestry of "complex textures and compositional fragments" that play out as a series of "long held tones and sweeping drones."

While samples from the set have yet to be unveiled, you can check out the artwork up above and peep the tracklisting down below.

While Bissonnette's last solo long-player was 2008's In Between Words, he issued the collaborative LP The Meridians of Longitude and Parallels of Latitude with David Wenngren in 2011.

Essays in Idleness:

1. Greenish in its Light
2. A Deplorable Corrupt
3. Entanglements
4. Delusions
5. Missing Chapters
6. Uniformity Is Undesirable
7. Another Moving Sight
8. Wasting a Little Time

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