One listen to an album like “We Are All Deaf” by noise/ambient duo Cernichov and you just know that there is a concept behind it. A deep and dark intellectual concept at that with, perhaps, much of the way of musical conceit to keep it company.
“We Are All Deaf” is six songs devoid of words and even focus with even the rigidity enforced by the synthetic nature of the sounds contained therein being unable to contain the organic reflowing of sonic textures into the canyons of your mind and indeed, to my mind, this album seemed like the soundtrack to that time between yesterday and today with the wordless meandering inducing some kind of parallel state to reality. More than background music, therefore, and most definitely best experienced with the intimacy afforded by headphones, “We Are All Deaf” did seem like a spell cast on whatever modernity might currently afflict you.
I would also suppose that the music or, more accurately, sonic pictures of Cernichov would be best described as an acquired taste with a degree of determined concentration being required to feel what you are hearing. Maybe that makes this album something of an intellectual experiment but, then again, we all need to exercise both our minds and our souls on a wet Tuesday evening.