"The sound of a "silent" audience also fills the eleventh (and to my ears most successful) b-boim. rain speak soft tree listens (2003) is a recording for string quartet and piano that also features the voices of twenty five guests each simultaneously whispering one of the words from a line taken from a Robert Lax poem: the five words of the work's title. At the heart of the recording remains the sound of the concert hall environment in Dusseldorf, complete with the usual shuffling and creaking, but also external sounds can also be clearly heard: voices calling, traffic passing, even church bells. Over this backdrop the strings place long slabs of dense, dry sound that peter out in places, leaving single instruments to finish before cutting away abruptly to silence. The piano contributes only single notes spaced wide apart in the recording, often close to the brief moments when the massed voices whisper their shapeless words. The cumulative effect is one of immense beauty. The restrained use of these composed elements set with precision amongst the unexpected external sounds is truly magical." | Richard Pinnell, Paris Transatlantic