Inside the Quiet predates Tim Hecker. It predates Fennesz, and most of the Kranky label's output. It is quite simply, the hidden ancestor of these artists, an obscure family relation to works like Mirages by Hecker, and, one might reasonably posit, an early exploration of the same sonic domains Hecker or Fennesz currently dwell within. It is, at its best, the deafening rumble of feedback, a thunderhead of the utmost ambience contained within the archaic chaos of noise.
"Awful Things Beautiful and Bright" would not sound out of place on either +47° 56' 37'' -16° 51' 08'' by Fennesz or the aforementioned Mirages. It is a constantly blossoming volcano of soothing feedback, so loud, yet, somehow, so quiet, that a listener could crawl within its enveloping cocoon. The nearly thirty minute "Abrupt Carnage" telescopes back within itself to explore the viscous murk of post-industrial ambient favored at one time by Jeff Greinke, Lull, and Main—a sound unusually current for the time of release, 1995, when these artists and many others were plying the terrain journalists then dubbed "Isolationism." Finally, the thirty-five minute sprawl of "Weddings, Funerals and Births" returns to the womb-like ambience of modern lo-fi ambient, the waterlogged swells of Stars of the Lid, the accidental orchestrations of Mirror and Maeror Tri, the ghostly sounds of the Caretaker, and is a fitting finale to the Aloof Proof album most difficult to pigeonhole stylistically.
With no commentary forthcoming from Fibe himself, it is difficult to understand why this should be the final Aloof Proof solo album released to date. The development of the artist, album to album, especially when considered from the perspective of the early twenty-first century, is steady and fascinating. What works might have been released in 1997, 2001, 2007? Were the albums' apparent lack of distribution and promotional support to blame? We hope, with the addition of this website, and a greater attention to the works of Aloof Proof, we will answer these questions in time.