"Together with his previous solo release, The Surreal Sanctuary, this forms a set of deeply atmospheric, brooding textures. Vidna's fascination with the wind instrument called a fujara continues. "The Contemporary Nocturne is the second half of a set of shimmering ambient explorations initiated with 2000's The Surreal Sanctuary. The music from both discs focuses on various instruments (including fujara, E-bow, overtone flute) and textural timbres ("The Gaze In Dissonance" highlights 'four harmonics recycled,' sounding like a chorus of humming, broken glass), and traverses darker territory than most of his other work. "Mute Grief" glistens like moist crystals, like the memory of wind-chimes never touched by wind, before the fujara fumes agitatedly, a grief doused in defiance. The reverberant, brush-stroked fujara of "Duel" falls off the edge of the world into "Chasing The Odyssee," in which the sloping elasticity of the E-bow and electric guitar echoes and disintegrates into the soft black nothingness. This cavernous descent is indicative of much of the swirling ambience on The Contemporary Nocturne, as if Vidna is recording the sound of the moonlit glare as it reflects off of mirrored canyons. Rich, lovely work culled from the outer reaches of ambience, and indicative of the fact that Vidna is not content to just rehash the norm."
