Mention words like “free jazz” and “improvisation” to most people, and they’ll probably imagine some sweaty-faced, bug-eyed, red-cheeked saxophonist making all manner of ungodly racket with his instrument. And by “racket”, I mean stuff that sounds more like constipated goats than anything that resembles “real” music. Speaking personally, I often fall into that category. While I can appreciate the concept of improvisational music, much of what I hear fails to excite or interest me in the slightest. On the contrary, I usually find it annoying, perplexing, and simply put, ugly on both aesthetic and emotional levels.

After a few initial listens, it seemed like Supersilent’s 6 would elicit a similar response. While some of the sounds I heard were intriguing, they failed to really resonate on any level in the following weeks. The album seemed destined to remain an oddity in my CD collection, its spartan packaging lost in the piles. However, and I still can’t fully comprehend the how’s or why’s, the disc suddenly clicked one day while I was listening to it at work. And it happened right when I was about to permanently write off the disc as a loss. Whereas before I had heard a formless jumble of sounds, I found something beautiful and truly intriguing.

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