Textura, April 2010
"Anyone still unconvinced that electronic music can convey emotion need only listen to Tim Arndt's fourth Near The Parenthesis album for n5MD, Music For The Forest Concourse, to be convinced otherwise. Arndt has an uncanny talent for maximizing the emotional side of his material, with the result serenading tracks brimming with showers of synthetic sparkle and plaintive piano melodies. With its elegant piano playing wrapped in swathes of electronics, the album opener “Good Evening” proves a particularly good exemplar of the style, as does “Inertia (Stay Right Here),” where equally lovely piano playing meanders through a garden of electronic delights. Generally speaking, the hour-long collection is a predictably stirring set from the San Francisco-based producer, who first gained attention with his 2006 release Go Out and See on the Canadian imprint Music Made By People. In Arndt's own words, Music For The Forest Concourse is “for dusk, for open air, for sitting down, and for breathing in. It is music for staring upwards and listening attentively or casually.” Though such a description emphasizes the music's calming dimension, his material can also work up a fair degree of intensity, as tracks such as “Pollarding Trees” and “Diffused” make clear (the latter could even be called shoegaze, if a guitar-less variant of it). In almost every case, Arndt gets the job done in about five minutes' time, so the album moves efficiently from one track to the next. He also brings immense craft to the construction of his multi-layered settings; though each features a wealth of sounds—beats, strings, flickering electronics, an occasional voice recording—, a sense of clarity pervades, in large part due to the central presence of the piano. How fitting it is that the quietly rapturous lullaby with which the album ends, “Good Night,” should be so strongly anchored by the instrument."
Now Like Photographs, April 2010
"The use of parenthetical clauses is often reserved for the conveyance of off-handed wisps of information – bits perhaps not absolutely integral to an idea or statement, but rather augmentative or pleasantly illuminative. Musical clauses can be parenthetical as well; textures ebb and flow from the sonic aether of one’s surroundings, as if gradually dusting off a hidden door with their timbre. An evening springtime stroll accompanied by Music for the Forest Concourse, the tertiary release from San Francisco’s Near the Parenthesis, can easily illustrate this concept. Several tracks, including “Good Evening,” “Pollarding Trees,” and “Within an Orbit” all display masterful interweaving of piano lines with warm, marmalade electronics and backgrounds of glazed ambience. “Inertia (Stay Right Here)” is self-explanatory in sound, as the track’s introduction gently persuades the listener to cease all movement, only to create inertia of its own later on. Contributing admirably to the catalog of n5MD Records, Near the Parenthesis has once again crafted an album of delicious and seductively thoughtful electronica (Music for the Forest Concourse)."
Paper Blog, April 2010
"Near The Parenthesis est le projet d'un californien, Tim Arndt, qui propose via le label de musiques électroniques ambiant n5MD sa quatrième réalisation. A l'écoute des morceaux de Music For The Forest Concourse on semble évoluer dans une forme de post-rock électronique assez attractive. Il est facile de décrocher assez vite sur ce genre de musique qui peuvent rapidement devenir plus assommantes qu'envoûtantes. Tim Arndt parvient par un travail rigoureux d'adjonctions sonores et de samples vocaux discrets à apporter cette petite touche qui fait que l'attention de l'auditeur reste en permanence éveillée. L'album précédent avait pour thématique un lieu : Barcelone . Celui-ci est inspiré par le temps de manière générale : un moment au crépuscule, un temps pris juste pour s'asseoir, un autre pour respirer. L'effet est assez magique : l'écoute de l'album est non seulement apaisante mais nous emmène aussi dans une sorte de dimension temporelle où les choses semblent évoluer de manière tellement plus tranquilles que dans notre quotidien. Agréable et véritablement bienfaisant."
De:Bug, May 2010
"Tim Arndt, der Mann hinter diesem schrulligen Projektnamen, hat bei mir im Herzen immer ein Zimmer frei. Dauerreservierung, ohne wenn und aber. Zwei Jahre hat er uns auf sein neues Album warten lassen, eigentlich frech. Und doch: Es sei ihm verziehen. Die neuen Tracks, die immer noch schwerstens Elektronika-verliebt sind, den Zeiten, als diese Art von Sound sehr en vogue war, deutlich in hörbar in Moll nachtrauern, kreisen so kongenial um das Piano als wiederkehrendes Moment, dass einfach alles passt. Minimale Arrangements sind Arndts Sache nicht, immer noch nicht, im Gegenteil. Bis unter die Decke schichtet er Melodie, Geräusch, Schlagwerk und Gefühl. Und dann plustert sich alles auf und sackt erschöpft in sich zusammen. Enorm bunt."
Exclaim!, May 2010
"Music For The Forest Concourse is a cushy, warm collection of subtly glitchy, expansive ambient. In his fourth release, Near Parenthesis (aka San Francisco, CA-based producer Tim Arndt) plies melodic keys through both calming and stirring atmospherics. The digitally enhanced organic vibes and emotive soundscape, replete with plenty of whirring synth-grain and glitch, envelope haunting piano sonnets as each track swells and crests with an oceanic quality. Reminiscent of label-mates AIM or Loess, Near Parenthesis is less cinematic than the former and less experimental than the later, but can still lay claim to a unique balance of intensity and fragility. Bolder than background music and not entirely beat-less, Music For The Forest Concourse frees the term "gripping ambient" from any oxymoronic notions."
The Milk Factory, June 2010
"Surfing the wave of lush cinematic electronic music, Near The Parenthesis’s Tim Arndt has, in the space of three records, refined a very personal style, which often relies heavily on sumptuous soundscapes and sweeping melodies. With his latest effort, Music For The Forest Concourse, released on n5MD, the San Francisco-based producer and musician has taken this to a very different level, as he adds elegant piano sections to this exquisitely layered compositions to greatly accentuate the evocative power of his music. While his work as Near The Parenthesis has always been primarily electronic-based, Arndt has, over the years, played guitar and piano in several bands, and has occasionally incorporated some of these in his solo work. Here though, he has deliberately taken the step of creating music that would largely rely on piano-led melodies, which, placed over delicate electronic backdrops, create, throughout the record, a particularly effective dreamy setting. Arndt’s sonic constructions are often extremely dense and complex affairs here, and it is difficult to identify exactly what is happening at any particular moment, yet these are rather expertly assembled to never overwhelm or intend to dazzle. Instead, they only serve to bind each piece together and create a universe unique to this record. Such enterprise can sometimes lead to overindulgence, and this album occasionally comes to it, but Arndt keeps it all under control by ensuring his compositions do not extend unnecessarily."
EtherREAL, July 2010
"Après l’approche plus calme et plutôt éloignée du post-rock électronisé de L’Eixample, Near The Parenthesis revient un peu à ce genre musical avec Music For The Forest Concourse, quatrième album de Tim Arndt. Pour autant, afin de ne pas tomber dans le risque d’une banalisation de sa musique (surtout sur un label comme n5MD dont les sorties opèrent majoritairement dans ce style), l’États-unien fait le choix de passer, comme base de ses morceaux, de la guitare au clavier. Ainsi, c’est cet instrument qui se trouve en première ligne, prompt à intervenir aux côtés des rythmiques programmées développant leur propos de manière déliée (Lambent Traces Of The Day). Pour accentuer ce sentiment, la tessiture des notes de clavier leur confère une rondeur ourlée, comme si elles étaient à peine effleurées afin d’être délicatement posées (Settle In, Not Here, Not Tonight). Même diapason quand des rythmiques plus riches sont rejointes par une double piste mélodique (Pollarding Trees, Diffused, Designing This Building). De même, les compositions de Tim Arndt se font naturellement plus mélancoliques lorsque les pulsations se font extrêmement discrètes (le début d’Inertia (Stay Right Here)). À côté de ces morceaux au clavier, il reste encore des exemples dans lesquels lignes de guitare et rythmiques gracieuses sont convoquées pour un dialogue savoureux (Good Evening) ou, bien que teintés de distorsion, hautement émouvants (Good Night). Mais ceux-ci ont été placés par le Californien en début et fin de disque, comme pour mieux servir à l’auditeur de porte d’entrée et de sortie autour de ce changement de medium dont le reste du disque témoigne avec beaucoup de qualité."
Headphone Commute, September 2010
"Gentle swells of piano, synth pads, and electronic percussion fill my room from the very first track of the latest album of Tim Arnd’s Near The Parenthesis project. On his fourth album for n5MD, titled Music For The Forest Concourse, Arndt explores meditative passages crafted specifically “for dusk, for open air, for sitting down, and for breathing in. It is music for staring upwards and listening attentively or casually”. Falling somewhere between modern classical, emotional electronica, and conscious sky gazing, the music of this San Francisco based producer evokes an up-lifting feeling in each near-five-minute-long track. Perfect for afternoon walks, open window car rides through the country, and for lazy Sunday morning coffee sips. It is especially nice to hear Arndt’s very personal piano work embedded in the background of each track, appropriately ending the album with the lullaby, “Goodnight”. Over the course of an hour in twelve loosely wrapped tracks, like random gifts left on the porch to be discovered by your sleepy neighbors, Near The Parenthesis delivers another collection of soothing glitchy ambient sounds, calming atmospheres and warm sunny rays."
Cyclic Defrost, October 2010
"While San Francisco-based electronic producer Tim Arndt’s preceding 2008 album ‘L’Eixample’ on n5MD saw him taking inspiration from his travels around the Barcelona district of the same name, this latest fourth album ‘Music For The Forest Concourse’ springs from a slightly more imaginary realm, with Arndt instead choosing the broad concept of time itself as his subject. Indeed, Arndt himself describes the twelve tracks here as ‘a collection for dusk, for open air, for sitting down and for breathing in – it is music for staring upwards and listening attentively or casually.” It’s certainly something of an accurate and apt description. As with Arndt’s previous work as Near The Parenthesis, the predominant emphasis here falls upon his lush, melancholic piano arrangements, with the addition of subtle electronics and minimalist glitchy rhythms calling to mind an atmosphere that frequently sits equally between modern classical and ambient. If opening track ‘Good Evening’ sees proceedings gently unfurling from a wash of ambient electronic textures into elegant piano arrangements coloured with the langorous click and buzz of electronic processing, ‘Lambent Traces Of The Day’ sees more rhythmic ballast entering the mix as clattering, almost post-rock tinged drums lock into place amidst the tumbling keys and gauzy, delayed out melodic electronic tones. There’s also a discernible nod towards Neu!-esque motorik rhythms to be found on ‘Within An Orbit’ as seemingly frictionless, flickering beats glide beneath tinkling keys and the slow, overlapping decay of pitched-down harmonic tones, but these occasional ventures into rhythmic territory aside, for the most part this is an album more geared towards early hours listening, with the aesthetic lean towards more melancholic hues on dreamlike tracks such as ‘Inertia (Stay Right Here)’ and ‘Low Horizon’ coming across as more contemplative than morose."