 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|
January/February 2007
BONOBO Bonobo aka Simon Green's first two albums captured a unique voice in instrumental hip-hop/trip-hop/downtempo breaks. Now comes his third album on the back of much pre-release ballyhoo about "songs" and vocalists and my alarm bells are ringing. I've seen this before: bedroom DJ/hip-hop enthusiast makes name with chilled, deeply personal, mostly instrumental beats and then "progresses" to using singers and writing "proper" songs. Result: loss of what made the music in special in the first place. Nightmares On Wax and Quantic are but two examples. Good news. Days To Come is quite magnificent and all is well in the Bonobo universe. The mixture of songs and instrumentals is unmistakably his own: jazzy grooves and guitar licks, Zen flutes, sweet violin and cello and oboe, sprinkles of acoustic guitar and of course a variety of breakbeats driving it along. Most of the sounds are sampled from Green's live playing, cut up and reassembled in his own beguiling and very organic way. Most crucially, his chosen vocalist fits like a silk glove. German poet and singer Bajka is unusual. Her slightly smoky tone, purry delivery and the way she curls her r's all sits perfectly here, whether or not you engage with the lyrics. There's one other guest who contributes a bloodless, plodding male vocal to "Fink" - hit the skip button and check the better version on the bonus 2nd disc which contains mostly instrumental versions of songs on the 1st. Speaking of instrumentals, Bonobo's instincts remain as sharp as ever. "Ketto" loops a harp melody and indistinct child-like vocal byte around a solid drum break to touching effect. "Transmission 94" is a mini 8-minute epic that builds and unfolds layers of keyboard, woodwind and violin melodies with jaw-dropping brilliance, not unlike the Cinematic Orchestra's most epic moments. Days To Come suggests a talent undiminished, and kudos to Matt Black and Jonathan Moore at Ninja Tune for continuing to nurture the label's gentler, downtempo side. Rating: 4.5/5
CARBON BASED LIFEFORMS More lush mystery from Johannes Hedberg and Daniel Ringstrom. This Swedish psy-ambient duo's second album picks up very much where the debut Hydroponic Garden (2005) left off. World Of Sleepers charts a course through slow, slightly crunchy breakbeats and slow doof with layered and lush synthetic chords, suggesting something akin to a long scuba dive in alien waters. Its a wonderfully deep and immersive experience constructed with great care, a harmonic blend of ambient trance, electro and Euro ambient-techno elements with patches of static, garbled radio transmissions and disembodied voice bytes. While at first this sounded a little too samey to my ears it revealed more breadth and especially more depth with successive listens. This is another high quality release from Ultimae Records, rich in atmosphere and wonder and the duo's best effort to date. Rating: 4.5/5
ELECTRYPNOSE Downbeat label Ajana Music put out a v.a compilation a few years ago called A Magical Journey highlighted by a ghostly piece of slow, trippy breaks called "Perce Orielle" by Swiss artist Electrypnose. Now comes his stunning new album which completely fulfils that track's promise. Subliminal Melancholy is dark, glistening and beautiful and sounds unlike anything in psychedelic chill right now. Ghostly synth chords and haunting melody lines move and morph like oil in a lava lamp, defying gravity as they glide through shadowy passages and circle under threatening skies. The mood is positively gothic at times ala early Delerium, such as "New Wave" with its doomy piano figures and unresolved chord changes. The beats are an odd and varied concoction of slow to mid-tempos influenced by breaks, techno, dub and drum'n'bass, sometimes pulled part and reconstructed with striking originality. The music casts long shadows - he's rather fond of minor keys - yet it falls well short of morbid gothic indulgence or avant noise. Excellent melodic writing is what gives these twilight atmospheres and meticulous sound design the necessary colour and emotion. Melancholy is a good thing it seems. One of the most original and compelling psy-ambient releases I've heard in a long time. Rating: 5/5
GREEN KINGDOM If you enjoyed Brian Eno's more tonal examples of environmental music and nature impressionism I can pretty much guarantee you'll love this. On the beatless Meadowview American composer Michael Cottone aka Green Kingdom opts for a small palate of synth sounds and occasional adds spare acoustic guitar, zither or piano. The opener "Hidden Stream" is the album at its most obviously musical, a delicate piece for guitar, piano and sighing synthesiser Other tracks like "Autumn Toadlick" and meltingly gorgeous "Auburn Road" (think Aphex Twin) are drone music of sorts, morphing between with light and shadow, based mostly on accessible major or minor keys with just a hint of abstraction. Cottone's location sound samples are effective but kept to a minimum; as a composer he clearly knows how to evoke scenes and impressions through his instruments. There's subtle touches that suggest the music's machine origins - little clicks, distortions and so on - none of them unwelcome. This is intelligent, warm and fragile music and an auspicious start for new Belgian label Heldernacht. Rating: 4/5
STEPHAN MICUS Imagine what all ethno-ambient, world beat and exotic dub music around these days might sound like without any electronic instruments or production. In 2007 that's a pretty mind-blowing thought. Yet after 30 years of releasing ambient albums on the indefinable ECM label Stephan Micus' working methods remain essentially unchanged. In that regard Micus is the ultimate purist. All instrumentation and sounds on his new album are, as always, acoustic and unprocessed. In another sense however he's completely non-purist, having collected a massive array or instruments from all over the world and learnt to play them in his own unique and deeply personal way. So while his music his an exotic appeal to Western ears, he's not mimicking the tradition of any culture. On The Wing once again finds him in fine form, returning to pure instrumental music after many years of vocally orientated works. The bittersweet strains of a bagpipe-like reed instrument feature prominently without dominating the album and there's a twang to some of the melodies that's simultaneous Moroccan and Irish, if you can imagine such a thing. The flutes are exquisitely warm and the nasal strains of his reed instruments are a piercing and clear as a desert night sky. I'm not going to call it spiritual, that's too easy. Suffice to say that Micus's music comes from a deep place and its transcendental power is very real. Rating: 4.5/5
MOONGOAT This 5-track debut release from Australian duo Moongoat is the kind of music that makes wading through hours of experimental electronic ambient worthwhile. The first three tracks are airy, landscaped, abstract ambient sketches with barely perceptible traces of tonal sound. Despite their minimal nature they are not static; all have a palpable sense of slow but constant drift and I found them immediately engaging.
MYSTICAL SUN San Francisco musician Mystical Sun makes a very celestial brand of psy-ambient and his tracks have graced many genre compilations in the last decade. Deeper Worlds comes in two two main styles: big spacious ambient dub, breaks and muted doof on the one hand, and beatless collages infused with Zen-like calmness on the other. Among the rhythmic tracks "Halo" is outstanding. Here he masterfully layers 3 or 4 melody lines at once with different synth sounds, adding loads of tiny details like jangling zither and choral vocals. "Cloudbursting" is another gem, a rousing tune led by an electric guitar arpeggio and a groove that sounds a bit like Big Beat gone psy. The gentlest moments are nearly all in the album's last third, throwing it a bit off balance after the rhythmic density of the first 50 minutes. These final tracks are subtle and lovely nonetheless, often with environmental effects and that exotic, pristine "lost paradise" kind of feel that new age recordings often promise but never really deliver. Mr. Mystic also has a sense of humour, with the press release describing Mystical Sun as "a human hyper-dimensional radio-interface that tunes into the sound of the universe and records it on a G5". Got that? Rating: 3.5/5
PAUL SCHWARTZ I thought I'd check out the state of commercial ambient pop in 2007 by waxing ears on this latest in a popular series by American composer/producer Paul Schwartz. On State Of Grace III classical pop and chamber music with religious overtones is the order of the day, as is also the case I presume with the album's predecessors. "To You" sounds like, uh, a love song to god sung by Celine Dion and the best thing that can said about it is that it's not over-sung. Vocalist Lisbeth Scott actually has a terrific voice and on the more opera-flavoured moments, too, she opts for understatement rather than that genre's very obvious bombast. The instrumentals "Lux Aeterna" and "Et Lux Perpetua" pull back from the spiritual quest for a while as the orchestra takes us through a series of imaginary film soundtracks. Otherwise its a fairly cheesy concoction overall with a standard of material that I suspect doesn't do justice to the talented musicians involved in its production, including Schwartz himself. If this genre really ignites your passion then the album holds some interest; otherwise you'd do much better with classic Delerium circa 1994-97. Rating: 2/5
VARIOUS ARTISTS The psychedelic ambient of the global psy-trance scene is arguably this decade's most transcendent form of ambient music. I'll recap if you're unfamiliar. It's usually rhythmic in structure with deep grooves grounded in dub, breaks and 4/4 beats of the modern dancefloor. It's multi-coloured and multi-layered in texture and melody. For the most part its trippy without being outrageously weird. But I think French label Ultimae Records has achieved something even greater with its Fahrenheit Project albums. No other compilation series has captured the sound of the cosmos so consistently well: that unmistakable spectral ambience that only electronically-based music can achieve with its beautiful-strange environments, quiet drama and awed reverence. Ultimae is not just a label, its a fully realised vision - the music, the packaging, the parties. This collective of composers, DJ's, sound designers, visual artists and dreamers have tapped into something profound and Fahrenheit Project part 6 finds them once again applying their craft with breathtaking finesse. There's nine tracks, some by newcomers like Scan-Tec, others by Ultimae icons Cell, Solar Fields and Aes Dana. "Erasing Pluto" by Cell typifies those tracks configured in 4/4 time, throbbing and sighing and glistening and reveling in gentle tension-and-release dynamics. Occasionally we get the squiggly figures of ye olde 303-driven acid house integrated into the newer dance-influenced sounds, all very tastefully done. The album closes on a quiet and folksy note with Hol Baumman's "Radio Bombay", sketching spare synthetic figures around an Indian vocal with acoustic guitar accompaniment. Yet even here, a subtle bass drone as big as the Milky Way lurks in the background. This is the Ultimae universe, and if you're not yet a traveler its time to get on board. Rating 4.5/5
VARIOUS ARTISTS Purveyor of psy slowbeats Chillcode Records follows up last year's Downbeat Liquid with this usually stimulating compilation of new and mostly instrumental tracks from various European artists. Despite the album being called Light Aromas the bottom end still thumps away very nicely thanks to dub production elements sprinkled throughout. Compared to its predecessor, though, the music IS lighter in so far as there's little in the way of dark edges and quite a sunny Balearic feel at times. Newcomer Jong uses vocals in a brave attempt at hip hop, reggae, Indian folk and Balearic chill all in one 6-minute track. Ten Madison's outstanding "After The Cut" and "Echtzeit" both roll along dense rhythm patterns and simple 3-chord synth figures that are highly effective. Scene veterans Aural Float and Vibrasphere deliver textbook examples of exotic dub: big, lush and beautiful. A quiet word to newbies Enterprise: the sample that drives "Lovely Atoms" has already been flogged by Entheogenic and Bob Holroyd and god knows who else. Must try harder. Rating: 3.5/5
VARIOUS ARTISTS It's all about the bass, mon. If nothing else, Sub Signals volume 1 clearly demonstrates the differences between dub in many of its modern expressions - ambient, psychedelic, exotic - and the more purist dub that remains heavily rooted in 1970's Jamaica. UK artist Gaudi is a passionate fan of the latter, twelve examples of which he's collected for this release. It's subtle, minimal and spacious, mostly instrumental, and dependent on fat basslines not just for weight but for much of its tunefulness too. This is a style meant to be played fairly loud and on a decent hi-fi system because its near useless when you can't hear those snaking bass parts. Get your ears around those and the warmth, quirks and creativity of the rest of the music becomes much more apparent. An excursion in space, percussion and reverberation that's not for everyone, but a highly credible album in the genre. Rating: 3.5/5
VIBRASPHERE Its a bit odd to think of Swedish duo Vibrasphere as having helped write the book on psychedelic ambient beats given that this is their first-ever album dedicated to ambient tunes. Yet I can't think of any other act this decade which has set psy-ambient standards higher than they have with scattered one-off tracks, contributed to downtempo compilations for Ultimae, Chillcode, Digital Structures and many other indie labels. The duo's main forte is progressive trance for the dancefloor - a genre I'm fond of and which they do very well - but I find their dubby ambient work allows them more variety and is a better showcase of their remarkable melodic gifts. Selected Downbeats is a download-only album collecting ten tasty tracks from a number of sources: their own albums, v.a compilations, and a couple of newly minted compositions. So what makes Vibrasphere's music special? For starters their dub production techniques are impeccable - big basslines, reverberating snares, massive space - and they have proved masters at adapting this Jamaican invention into something new, exotic and much more multi-cultural. Most unique is how their arrangements resemble massive pieces of architecture - complex, huge, futuristic structures with clean edges and spacious surrounds, full of light and colour and warmth. Its exceptionally visual music of which "Ice Flow" is but one fine example. And those melodies...god, there are tunes here to die for. All up Selected Downbeats is progressive chill of the most polished and accessible kind. Minor gripes: the sublime "San Pedro" isn't here and the 2005 remix of "Manzanilla" mutes the once sparkling acoustic guitar to detrimental effect. Rating: 4.5/5
|
