It’s not often that a work of art creates an impact due to its sheer creativity and ability to pique the interest of any curious mind — and it’s an even more spectacular feat for an attention-grabbing masterpiece to potentially generate endless discussions on its complexity and masterful composition from start to finish.

This is exactly how one would feel with ‘The Closest Thing to Silence’, a collaboration between three musicians borne out of a chance encounter in a broadcast music program.

Ariel Kalma, the French fourth-world pioneer, was sent an invitation to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction program — a series that highlights several musical collaborations. After he was sent the invite, Ariel had the genius idea of setting up with the musical duo of Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer.

The pairing was a match made in heaven — Chiu, in particular, was already a big fan of Ariel’s work at this point in time. Chiu immediately jumped at the chance to work with Kalma, whom he cites as a major influence in his music career.

Their initial work was broadcast on Late Junction in September of 2022, but simultaneously, Karma, Chiu and Honer began expanding their collaboration. The result of this eventful crossing of minds between talented individuals is an album guaranteed to leave a lasting impact on its listeners for days on end.

Blending together the unique fragments of musical genius oozing out of the minds of its creators with a more structured back-and-forth approach in creating the album, The Closest Thing to Silence is as raw and powerful as it gets. Each track perfectly exemplifies the combined years of experience and quick-witted creativity among the three artists.

The Closest Thing to Silence kicks off with a haunting track called ‘Ten Hour Wave’ — immediately, the spontaneous vibe that comes from the natural musical improvisations that the three artists meshed together to create a melodic wonder is instantly felt.

The bizarre but beautiful harmony of combined approaches to the tracks in the album carries over to the next song, ‘Breathing In Three Orbits’ — a track preceded by yet another suspenseful introduction.

The atmospheric vibe of the album is highlighted in tracks such as ‘Dizzy Ditty’, ‘A Treasure Chest’, and ‘Stack Attack’ which all incorporate a more unorthodox approach in their musical structure — which one can assume is made possible by the unique process that Kalma, Chiu, and Honer had adapted in making the album.

The reverberating aura of the album is turned up a notch with tracks such as ‘Une Ombre Légère’, ‘New Air’, and ‘Stay Centered’, which also have a mysterious yet interesting identity to them that will definitely leave a lasting impression on its listeners.

Kalma’s signature electronic music chops can especially be felt in tracks such as ‘Écoute Au Loin’ — which is also one of the longer songs in the album. Also, a song that bears the namesake of the album is placed near the start of the record. This track showcases not only the massive talent that all of the musicians responsible for the creation of the album have but also their ability to bounce off of each other’s ideas flawlessly in order to create a masterpiece that is bound to stir conversations.

The intangible impact of The Closest Thing To Silence perfectly embodies the complexity of music as an art form and how gems of flawless creativity can be taken from the most random encounters.