Excerpt: “SF sound sculptor and dreamdronedrift composer Wes Willenbring… is an accomplished pianist and guitarist, and those instruments form the basis of these songs, in some places that’s obvious, but in others, the piano and the guitar, or any semblance of either, are blurred, or smeared, or pixelated into hazy clouds of sound, of softly shifting streaks of crystalline shimmer, the guitar often transformed into a buried pulse, the piano into soft focus flurries of barely there melody, at its most diffused and abstract, this is total bleary eyed starlight pop ambience, the sort of hushed orchestral drift that would appeal to fans of other sonic abstractionists like Stars Of The Lid or Tim Hecker or Fennesz… Totally sublime moody minimalism, a late night moonlit, slip-into-the-ether sort of dreamdrift dronemusic, equal parts gauzy abstraction and languid whispery post rock drift, that is as divine as it is dreamy.”

Aquarius Records

Excerpt: “The eight tracks, driven mainly by guitar and/or piano with slight electronic tinkering, straddle a fine line between modern classical and drone. It’s very expressive music, painting ghostly images of barren wilderness and other forms of magnificent desolation… This type of music certainly encourages looking for the little things, trying to search out individual notes submerged in a sea of reverb, and Close, But Not Too Close has a lot of aural Easter eggs waiting to be discovered… less a collection of songs than it is pure mood, an audible fog that seeps from speakers to bathe home stereos in frozen moonlight.”

Igloo Magazine

Excerpt: ‘The discs are loaded with layered, thoughtful pieces rich in instrumentation and heavy on a narrative sensibility…. with pieces that wander and shuffle through bleak and melancholic landscapes like they need a little space to sort things out. Everything is played with a deliberate grace that allows each instrument’s contribution be fully felt, notes slipping perfectly into place at exactly the right time. Willenbring’s approach skirts the edge of minimalism in that there’s nothing here that isn’t absolutely inherent, nothing wedged or crammed in where it doesn’t belong. The notes fall like rain, the backgrounds shift and float like windblown curtains and everything sounds like it’s hanging at the precipice of heartbreak.’

Hypnagogue

Excerpt: “Track titles such as “The Anti-Social Aesthetic” and “I’m Looking Forward to Your Funeral” suggest his music might be so hermetic it’s designed to ward off listeners’ advances, but in fact Willenbring leaves the door open just enough to allow visitors in to share his world. His is an unassuming and rather muted style; he’s not the kind of composer who bludgeons the listener with abrasive extremes but rather lures him/her in with the seductive understatement of fully-rounded and plaintive meditations.”

Textura