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WHERE DID THE ARCHIVE GO?

When your web software starts to bog and choke on a page when it loads due to the size of it--and when said page is nothing but a dense field of text--you know it's time to do something about it.

All of the archived reviews from the beginning of this site to early 2009 have been rolled up into a PDF file for (ahem) easy viewing.

If for some reason you really want to go digging around the musty leftovers of my reviewing career, you're welcome to it. Please be advised that I was surprised to find that, single spaced in a 12-point font with one return between paragraphs and two between reviews, the archive pigged out at a ridiculous 70 pages.

Happy reading! Get the archive HERE.

2009 Past Reviews (Alphabetical)

a.r.s.(E), errata

Experimental, unusual, and very, very listenable—that’s the upshot of having minimalist Dwight Ashley, electro-chamber-music guru Tim Story, and Hans Joachim Roedelius, one of the godfathers of electronic music, get together for what they call “a musical game of exquisite corpse.” The resultant pieces are richly varied, with distinctly different character and differing levels of commitment required from the listener. Deep attention pays off as you explore the intricate and seamless weft and weave of the three styles at work, the way in which each element accents and complements as a piece moves forward. I particularly like the otherworldly-jazz feel of “gefallig,” featuring what I assume is Ashley’s cello, warped and manipulated, over a simple piano-and-drum backdrop; the quiet drama of “simmering”; and the calming, velvety drift of “gefangen.” The 10-minute uptempo jam of “squiggle” is worth the price of admission as the trio cuts loose to showcases the chemistry at work here. Given the growing lineage between these three--their individual work, Ashley & Story's back catalog, and some find CDs from Story & Roedelius (Lunz and Inlandish, for two), this is another engrossing chapter in a fine, ongoing story. Find it at nepenthemusic.com

Matt Borghi, Huronic Minor

Originally issued in mp3 format back in 2000, Huronic Minor is a deeply lush and introspective work of long-form drones with a gentle, liquid feel. Borghi pours his love of the Michigan wilds and the chilly expanses of the lake into each piece, like a deep breath taken at water’s edge and let out slowly, a cloud of cold-morning breath drifting and changing in the wind. This is a disk that will comfortably play at low volume on endless repeat to just wrap the listener in its quiet narrative. Borghi’s palette of greys flecked with glimmers of light and the calm hues of his shifting drones makes for a perfectly executed blend. Huronic Minor is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Cluster, Qua

I recognize that, having been into electronic music for so long, I ought to be more familiar than I am with Cluster--the duo of Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius that has influenced an incredible range of musicians from all walks of rock. And yet, going into Qua, their first CD in a decade, I'm glad that I didn't have foreknowledge of their work. It allowed me to approach the iconic twosome's style with no predisposition to liking or not liking it, no history to judge by. I was more free to explore the intriguing sonic shapes and portraits they create, and their approach to creating music from non-music. For me, that's one of the big draws of Qua, one of the elements that keeps me coming back: the broad range of sounds at work here and the way they're pieced, stitched, slammed and glued together to create new musical noises that feel as if they belonged together the whole time. And, of course, there's the underlying sense of two friends, whose musical trust has been welded across time, just having a damn fine time for themselves. There's a feeling of play blended with the right touch of mischief in the studio, countless games of "What can we do with this?" In press materials, producer Tim Story notes that the sounds on Qua include a squeaky bathroom door (on which Dieter Moebius plays a "solo") and a broken Farfisa organ. It's like a pair of musical hooligans seeing what they can get away with, and the result is a CD that charms and challenges at the same time. There are 17 relatively short tracks here, with even the longest clocking in at under 7 minutes. It's a dessert tray of sonic goodies, and most people are bound to find a number of treats that suit their tastes. I like the bouncy stride of "So Ney," the slow-moving, shadowy drama of "Xanesra," the oddly catchy robo-funk groove and slithering feel of "Malturi Sa," the light-but-cluttered bop of "Albtrec Corn," the twisted house-music overtones of "Formalt," and the airy, warbling vocal-like float of "Imtrerion." Top of the list, however, is the indescribable "Diagon." It's under 90 seconds long and is based on a very simple repeated chord pattern, but the way the Cluster gents warp and bend this sound just sticks in my head. There's a definite humor to it. Listening to Qua has been an interesting experience for me because while I'm in it part of me keeps wondering, what IS that sound? while the rest of me thinks, Shut up--we're trying to listen to this! Have a listen for yourself, whether you're a long-time Cluster veteran or a newbie like me. There's a reason Moebius and Roedelius have been at it this long, and it's captured here.

Available from Nepenthe Records.

What was it like for Tim Story to produce Cluster? Get a

Computerchemist, Landform

Add Computerchemist to my list of artists whose new work I genuinely look forward to. Dave Pearson has called himself and his work “more TD than TD.” That being the case, his latest offering, Landform, brings Pearson’s homage up to the Melrose/Le Parc era with its blend of sequencer runs and blistering guitar. “After the Eclipse” kicks off the disk in high-octane style, and Pearson doesn’t relent. I up the volume as the guitar kicks in on “Darklight Drive,” urged on by pounding prog-rock drums. “Cave Search” starts slow and dramatic and keeps a mysterious air through half of its eleven minutes. A pause, and Pearson hits the thrusters. The title track rolls along on a burbling sequencer track as guitar and piano punctuate the path. The final ride, “Geoid,” is pure space-jazz goodness. As usual, Pearson gives himself room to rip and to develop each of his sonic stories–tales well worth both the telling and the hearing. This is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD, especially if you like your music with a touch of old-school style. Available at www.computerchemist.com

Al Conti, Scheherazade

Al Conti takes a thematic-heavy risk on his disk, Scheherazade, and the payoff is not quite as well delivered as [Ian Teese’s...see review below--js]. This is a very New Age-style album in the Yanni/Tesh mode, wonderfully played and diverse in its instrumentation...but for me, the theme wears out its welcome quickly because the overall feel of the album doesn’t change from track to track. The Middle Eastern flavor overwhelms the listener like strong curry. Obviously, the intent of the disk is to capture in musical form the tales of Scheherazade, but it comes across—again, to these ears—as just a bit relentless. Could be simply that my tastes don’t run to an excess of Middle Eastern themes. After all, the disk’s PR blurb at CDBaby says it was the #1 disk on New Age Reporter's Top 100 chart in October, November & December of 2008. You be the judge. Find it at www.alconti.net

Creature, Distant Horizon

Circuit-bending guru Stephen Haunts. aka Creature, is back to eviscerating Speak 'n Spells and other childhood electronics to cobble together the samples and glitches that form his CD Distant Horizon. I've been meaning to drop him an e-mail to ask if part of the disk's focus was on reworking a recurring theme, as I keep hearing eerily similar phrasing--twisted and mutated wonderfully--throughout. I am a Creature fan, admittedly. Haunts has a solid hand when it comes to pairing his odd sounds with cool beats. Even as I type this, I'm deep in the infectious groove of "Carbon," which deserves a boatload of airplay in my opinion. And here's where I start to hear the repetiton...a phrase here gets re-created in the next track, "Tenger Misuser"--and by "re-created" I mean sprayed with acid and given electroshock therapy. Next, it gets crushed under a dense beat and stretched out for its appearance in "Metrified Outfielding." Clearly, Haunts is going for a "variations" thing, and it works. He keeps his tracks short and packed with maximum groove, moving quickly from one mad experiment to the next. This Distant Horizon is one you need to investigate for yourself.

Find it at the Creature web site or CDBaby.

CyberCHUMP, Our Wizards of Earth

CyberCHUMP kneels at the altar of prog for their lastest offering, Our Wizards of Earth. Of the three CC albums I've been privvy to, I have to say that this comes off the weakest for me. It certainly has moments that deserve my full attention--the track "Roughhouse" comes immediately to mind, charging in on buzzsaw guitar chords and a biker-bar-tough bassline. It's like the theme song to a post-apocalyptic Western. It may just be that I could do without the tracks with the wispy vocals that just don't work for me. (The one exception is the weirdly poetic, almost Bowie-esque voice on "Of Distance and Resonence.") Of course, CC has always been instrumentally strong, and in that regard, Wizards works. The potent crush of "Storm's a Comin'," riding on aggressive guitars, is another standout track, as is the hard-driving closer, "New Skin." This isn't one of those CDs I review and toss; there's good stuff here. It's just (for me) not as strong as "Sankhara" or "Scientists in the Trees." But decidedly worth a listen. I like the way the lads of cyberCHUMP redefine who and what they are with each new disk. Check 'em out at the cyberCHUMP web site.

Mike DIckson, Six Consequences

Mike Dickson is part the duo Systems Theory. But he’s also got a string of solo releases, including Six Consequences. This disk straddles the border between New Age, neo-classical and something that can only be described as soundtrack-worthy pieces. Dickson lays down an interesting format. Each piece on the disk is preceded by a “consequence”—sometimes thematically echoing the larger piece that follows, sometimes just a sort of musical noodling that made its way onto the disk. Then come the larger pieces, rich with drama and sonic narrative. They’re long works with ample time to tell their story and no bumps along the way, and Dickson shows a very pleasing attention to the little details that keep them interesting. “The Hammer Strikes Back” shows a strong tone-poem genealogy, and speaks its story clearly in drums and electronic burbles. “Stroke #2” is a short and slow-moving piece with far-arching choral voices that sends a little shiver down my spine when I listen to it. “Codetalking” blends those choral voices with drifting radio samples that mark changes of intent. Here, Dickson’s piano work, buffered by the chorus, is slow, pastoral and calmingly quiet. “Vulture,” a short piece featuring treated piano along with other instruments, drifts through its first half before grabbing hold of a sequencer groove and a little dash of Jarre and taking a short flight. The absolute highlight for me is the frenetic, exhilarating “Vortex,” which hurtles away from the dock at speed and never quite slows down. Picking up some thematic passengers from Planet Oldfield on the way, Dickson crams the throttle wide open, kicks the sequencers into overdrive and ramps it all up to light speed, at one point filtering in up Spanish guitar passages from a ST piece called “Green Miata Southbound.” (And let’s not forget the little “ding” of a bell that might be just a bit tubular to close out the track and the disk.) There aren’t any real mis-steps in Consequences, although I could do without Dickson’s very nice covers of Satie’s “Gymnopedies,” especially since he has an entire CD dedicated to same. But it’s not an intrusive inclusion in such a strong disk. If you like your music soundtrack-worthy with a bit of rock bombast thrown in for good (and well-used!) measure, have a listen to Six Consequences. Available at mikedickson.org.uk.

Dolmen, Incantations Verse: One & Verse: Two

I found out about Dolmen–the duo of Jason Sloan and Stephen Smith–late. Late as in this, their final album together. And now I need to go back and find everything they’ve done. Because the power and imagery that drives this two-disk set quiote frankly stunned me. Too strong? Not at all. Incantations Verse: One and Verse: Two are built on dark, dense guitar-based drones and clashing, unapologetic noise paired up with aggressive tribal rhythms and longform drifts carved from shadow. These disks seethe with a sense of the ritualistic, an irresistible calling to a sensually dark and potentially dangerous place inside of ourselves. Mesmerizing, challenging and, in the end, compelling stuff that makes for one of the best offerings of the year. Disk one rises out the drum-and-static genesis of "Christ's Burnt Monolith," to immediately sets the listener on notice that this will not be a simple ride. "Calling Our Dead Ones Home" builds on the driving percussion that underlies much of the work here, a pulse that's so integral that when the beat drops out, it's like something's been taken from you. That's the kind of draw the disk has--this is music that hits you on a personal level because it's connecting to some unspoken thing that you understand. "Exile from Purgatory" drifts by uneasily before hiding itself in dark noise. Feedback and rhtythm empower "Forgotten Ritual" as distorted vocal samples curl around the sound, demonstrating how well Sloan and Smith balance infectious rhythms and beats with storms of dense sound. Melodies struggle against the sound, aching to be known. It's like hearing a secret message in the sound. "Signal Lights" is a short, comparatively calm respite of soft pads leading into the grimmer feel of "Colored Wound of Autumn." In "Residual Haunting II" a rising beat and chanting vocal sample give way to the repeated muffled voice of a young girl. It's like being witness to an arcane calling, and it's hypnotic stuff. Verse: One ends with "A Past Life Reconstructed," a 15-minute excursion where that beat-beneath-noise concept hits its stride, building itself in layers as Sloan's guitar muscles its way forward, twisting itself around Smith's airy swirls. And at the 8-minute mark, it just cuts loose with a sense of grim ecstasy--the culmination of the first incantation. And that's just half of the ride.

Verse: Two offers more of the very welcome same, opening with the rhythmic drive and guitar of "Lost at the Beginning" and moving into the grinding "A Past of Ashes," where electrostatic noise vies with airy chords for your attention. When the noise drops off, the chords remain like a benediction for making it through. "Magick" takes hold immediately--a muffled incantation, a grim drone, and then...those drums. This is a turn-it-up moment. Sloan's guitar insinuates itself beneath it all, the air fills with a relentless blast of noise, and the spell is complete. This, along with "Past Life.." and the disk two closer, "This World Can't Last," is one of the best moments of Incantations. "Idolatry" moves in softly with a touch of dub and silky drifts, drawing power in its last two minutes from the drums and grind. A reverential mystery is the foundation for "When My World Collapses." This piece demands and rewards close listening. Beautiful and chilling. "Asceticism" is as close to meditative at this disk gets, slow-moving and nearly calming. Drums and a cold synth-wind mark the boundaries. "Residual Haunting III" is as darkly engaging as its earlier companion piece while at the same time completely unique to it. From here, Sloan and Smith begin to cull together final spell to end the world. It begins with a "Circle of Candles"--pounding drums rising immediately under a chant-like drone--a dreadful OM, if you will--with shadowy elements moving in from the periphery. Sloan's wailing guitar calls from a distance. And it all hangs there like an omen, swirling and gathering demonic energy. In the final minute a piano, marvelously out of place, offers up a gentle chord structure. And then Sloan and Smith bring it all to an end with "This World Can't Last," a 13-minute (excuse the hyperbole) tour de force where every element of Incatations falls into place--it is contemplative, quiet, urgent, forceful, rhythmic, savage--and, in the end, simply and completely magnificent.

Since my reviews are never this long or deeply detailed, I'm sure you get the idea--this is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD. In fact, it's more than that. It's a disk I will absolutely insist you should not go without. Experience this music. Succumb to it. Find it now at the Slo-Bor media web site.

earWorm, earWorm

I confess that when I see the phrase "improvisational music," it makes me want to do a dive-and-roll to find hard cover because I foresee an imminent train wreck. I'm not a big fan of the avant-garde and never have been, and this term conjures up for me a whole world of music-school theory stylings and advanced modern concepts that I'm simply not going to "get." And so as I hit "play" on the first release from improvisational troupe earWorm, I braced myself for a collision...that never quite came. Make no mistake--this is a disk of purely improvisational live jams, driven by a quartet of musicians whose collective resumes should make your jaw drop--fellowships, grants, doctorates, commsioned works, worldwide acclaim...it goes on. (And, as a design note, if the inner flap with the band info wasn't done in light tan on a brown background in the "Papyrus" font at about a 4-point size, you might be able to read it for yourself. But you can't, unless you're a mutant born with microscopic vision. Non-mutants can go to the web site instead.) This disk is a funk-laden, jazz-born set of tunes that are admittedly right on the cusp of what I'd normally cover (but since Elliott Miles McKinley lists "laptop" on his instruments, they make it in under the wire.) But the deeper into it I got--and the further I was from my improvophobia, the more I enjoyed it. There are some moments that hop the fence into the "I don't get it" area, but for the most part it's an enjoyable ride. I particuarly like the raw, hard-charging groove of "Dusting the Juggler" and the varied forms of the three-part suite "A Jungle of Cubes," which starts with soft flute and electric piano that puts me in my of Return to Forever (I did a short stint as a jazz DJ in college...), picks up a percussive pace and spacey keyboards in the second movement, then grabs a bass and a sassy attitude for its final five minutes. This segues gorgeously into another favorite, "Lighting Up the Room," the feel of which falls neatly between 70s versions of smooth jazz, a TV theme song and a porno soundtrack. A chewy funk-bass lick lays down the cadence, Zachary Crockett's flute drifts and weaves over it, and the whole thing is just one big retro groove that's pure pleasure. I like the closing track, "earWorm!" for the way it nicely punctuates this disk's improv nature--its semi-certain end pointing up the "musicians at play" aspect of the recording. Nice touch. I know that there are extremely high concepts at work on earWorm, a universe of tonalities and alternate scales and rhythmic patterns I could never comprehend. Luckily, all I have to do is sit back and let these four talents take me where they need me to go--and it's quite a ride.

Get all earWormed up for yourself at the earWorm web site.

Ephemeral Mists, Moon Ritual

Brett Branning is a man of many musical identities. I first encountered him as Abandoned Toys and took note of his soft-handed piano work. He popped up again on the Mythical Records compilation Odyssey of Rapture (see above) in the guise of Synthetic Dream Foundation, with more of said piano paired with Hannah Fury’s astounding voice. Now he comes to me as Ephemeral Mists with the CD Moon Ritual, and this personality is forthrightly funk, club-ready and flavored with potent Middle Eastern and Far Eastern spices. It’s a very good recipe, and Branning’s smart enough to stir the pot. (Let’s see how far I can....beat this analogy, huh?) After two blood-stirring tracks (“Awakening Spirits” and “Eastern Channels”) he slows the tempo with the seductive sway of “Transcendental Visions.” Heady percussion drives it forward. “Gardens of Reflection” starts quietly and builds to a deep groove, grabbing an Enigma-style touch on the way. “Rain Sculpted Dreams” enters on the back of a snake under a sultry bass-and-drum veil—and then Branning’s piano strides in and it all takes off to a new plane. This track is flat-out sexy, if I say so myself. “Where the Wind is Born” breezes through softly before the title track closes out the disk in a full-blown Eastern groove. In any of his various incarnations, Branning continues to succeed and delight, and Moon Ritual is no exception. I look forward to more from him . . . whatever he may call himself next.

Available from Mythical Records.

Carl Franke, First Berries After Hibernation

If Carl Franke's First Berries After Hibernation was a girlfriend, she'd be the one you weren't sure of at first, and then she turned out to be really good in bed, but a little crazy, and you kept breaking up but then you'd see her at a party and she'd smile a certain way from across the room and next thing you know there you were back in bed and talking about getting together and it would be cool for a while, but then the crazy would pop up again, and so on and so on. Franke, an artist who's decided to dabble in electronic music, offers up a set of interesting but often uneven pieces that always catch my attention if I'm on shuffle, but that (for me) don't hold up for a full-length listen. I like parts, but not the whole. Franke seems to lose his way and decent compositions suddenly get a burst of noise/weirdness. Standouts include the slow-shuffling cool of "Shinobi vs. Rastan," the drifting "Happy Touch" and the let's-get-funky, pop-infused and noise-annointed "Caddy." I'm interested to see what Franke offers next as he gets more comfortable. A decent first effort that I've kept coming back to--on shuffle.

Check out Carl's work, including his art, at his web site.

Igneous Flame & Disturbed Earth, Harmonium

Listening to Harmonium, the new collaborative work from Igneous Flame and Disturbed Earth, is like spending an hour wrapped in a warm bank of fog that sighs around you, spectral shapes forming out of the mist to laze and drift past. It is complete immersion in an unimpeded stream of gentle sound that utterly calms the mind and spirit and slows the breath. Elegantly simple in feeling but offering so much when listened to deeply, the tracks here are expertly layered, with Dean Richards’ pedal harmonium creations floating and rolling quietly through Pete Kelly’s sonic manipulations, the alchemical blend turning them to softly pulsing dreamspaces. This is a perfect CD for meditation or for low-volume looping during sleep. For pure, atmospheric drifts, this is one of the best releases I’ve heard this year. A brilliant piece of work, and a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from LuminaSounds.

KK, Telescope

KK’s Telescope is one of those disks that rides along the edge of what I will and won’t review. It’s club music, really, with poppy beats wrapped around a spacey theme. I found myself tapping my foot to tracks like “Dust.” But then I’d get to a piece like “Sol 3” with its forced dramatic narrative that only served to put me in mind of something between Donovan’s “Atlantis” and Spinal Tap’s “Stonehenge,” and I had to reach for the fast-forward button. A mixed bag that really didn’t do it for me—and I was certainly hoping for more after I re-discovered it hiding in my car’s trunk. Decent in a mix, but nothing I’ve been hurrying back to get more of. Try it for yourself at kktelescopes.com.

Jeffrey Koepper, Sequentaria & Luminosity

Analog lovers will find plenty to enjoy in Jeffrey Koepper's 2008 and 2009 releases, Sequentaria and Luminosity. Seated in the cockpit behind his refurbished old-school synths, Koepper takes listeners on deep journeys that alternately cruise at warp speed and drift through quiet nebulae. Jeffrey has a way of bringing a very organic touch to the cybernetic precision of sequencer-based music. The punchy “Blue Sector” kicks off the disk by pulling gently awaty from the dock on long pads and then jamming the engines wide open in classic space-funk style. It docks neatly into “Astral Projection,” a trippy bit of knob-adjusting pleasure wherein wet, mutant sounds evolve into lush, falling pads and shivering synth-spirals under the watch of a slow-but-vigilant bass tremble. “Timeline” hypnotizes the listener with balanced sequencer lines in both ears that build to a dense cluster of sound and an invasive beat that Koepper builds with an invisible hand. It fades nicely into the broad washes and twiddle of the start of "Near Machinery"--another instance of Koepper lulling the listener for a few minutes before kicking it into overdrive. The wave-form drift, delayed-echo melodies and spacey twiddle of “Interphase” follows, a nice mid-speed cruiser. With the clockwork-precise weaving of sequencer lines in "Synchronous" Koepper returns to his dense-layering ways, one subtle enhancement at a time. “Parallel Being” follows, moving from a dramatic drone-based beginning to an easy-flowing piece with a subtle Asian flair as woodwind-synths trade melodic lines. "One Hundred Memories" is another exercise in layering paired with spacey chord runs. And then...

"Creation," the last track on Sequentaria, is Koepper at his funky finest, opening with a long drone that begins to morph under a rising beat before the whole thing just breaks loose, layer upon high-octane layer, for 10 glorious minutes of full-out spacegroove.

"Luminosity" seems, to these ears, to be a bit more hands-on, and certainly softer than Koepper's earlier works. Soft woodwind sounds abound. This one eases into the background more readily than other outings. There are, obviously, similarities--"Reflection" opens sounding very much like "Between Dreams" from the Etherea CD, "Transmission" will readily remind you of "Creation" once it gets cooking around the 4-minute mark, and "Dusk Til Dawn" is a close cousin to "Astral Projection" off Sequentaria.

But altogether, both disks are an excellent additon to the Koepper canon and go a long way toward keeping the analog torch lit. Find them at Koepper's web site or at the Steve Roach site.

Mark Mahoney, Beyond the Vaulting Sky

I am familiar with Mark Mahoney largely through his collaborations with M. Peck (The Gallery of Subtle Smiles is a Highly Recommended CD) although lately I've quite been enjoying the live sessions he's been posting at the Hypnos forum. Mahoney's work is very electronic in nature, urging technosqueals and transistobabble from his gear and bending them to his compositional will. They're eminently malleable in his hands, readily made into workable components for his dark-edged soundforms. But he's equally at home working the waveform of a softer ambient flow. That craftsmanship is in full effect on Beyond the Vaulting Sky, on M. Peck's new Waiting World Records label. Mahoney opens with the disk with the 10-minute title track, which eerily crawls and scuttles its way along, a blend of burbling noise and shade that twists and morphs across its length. “A Visit to the Most Ancient Outpost” is sonic narrative at its best, with Mahoney’s almost-playful melodic line wandering through the somewhat quaint, archaic pulse and precision of dust-covered machinery left to chug away on its own across centuries. A beautifully imagined piece. I’m on the fence about “Dance of the Arachnids”—something about it just doesn’t sit well. It’s an unusual piece where what sounds to these ears like a long-lost edit from the organ solo from “In A Gadda Da Vida” winds itself around an off-kilter rhythm. It’s the only stumbling point for me as a listener. But Mahoney recovers (for me, anyway) with the deep chill of “The Subtleties Between Desire and Need,” a brain-massaging wave-and-flow piece that settles in quietly and makes itself at home in your head. "Voices Within the Solar Stream" is a slow-moving, nicely layered work with thick chords floating around and through a shadowy sonic landscape. There's a lot going on here, every background sound, no matter how odd, adding a touch of story to the piece, never detracting or distracting. Mahoney lets the piece grow and evolve across its 12 minutes. It flows, suitably enough, into the lighter liquid depths of "Starfish," shot through with an electronic version of the glimmer of sun on water. (Poetic listener license, there...) Mahoney follows it with the meditative "Sailing With Calm Remembrances." It's a rich, warm piece with a classic ambient feel. Beyond the Vaulting Sky closes with the funky, dark "Chopped Logic." Mahoney start us off with a typewriter-style sound clattering over an ominous--no, make that menacing--repeated phrase. The feel of the piece shifts smoothly, like walking through a dimly lit gallery and catching glimpses of paintings. It's a satisfying end to a very satisfying CD.

Check it out at the Waiting World Records blog.

Mara’s Torment, Across for Show

It’s been ten years since the original intended release of what was to be the second Mara’s Torment CD from Rik MacLean, and now that it’s here, brought back by AtmoWorks, I will probably not be the first to say....What were you waiting for, Rik? Notes on the artist’s web site mention that the introspective, shadow-tinted (and “depression-induced”) pieces here were originally replaced with more upbeat offerings, but clearly MacLean has always understood that they have their own languid beauty and lyrical imagery and needed to be heard. Across for Show... is a fresh CD of pensively beautiful pieces that suffer not at all from being shelved for a decade and show no sign of age. “Where We Go To Die” starts the disc with a blend of floaty chorale-voice chords over a snappy hand-drum-style beat that lends a touch of the tribal to it. From there MacLean takes the listener down into more drift-and-drone, cloudwatching territory beginning the 11-minute calm of “Imagine Me” and the equally soft “Where It Begins” Things get a touch darker with the elegiac tones and minor-chord sadness of “Trances, Dialogues,” carrying through the glacial grace of “Symmetry.” MacLean lightens the path with “Under Starlit Skies” and its near-twin, “Of Stars and Wishes,” two tracks where appropriately twinkly notes blink over airy drifts. Of the two, the latter is more densely electronic, the twinkle coming in rapid clusters. “Some Hope However Small” is an exercise in warm minimalism, a very welcome drone-based brain massage that gives your neurons a break for six minutes. It segues smoothly into “The Effects of Rabies on Angels,” a nice melding of dark bass chords and high, light sweeps coursing over each other. The disc closes with the mechanically tinged “Down for Go,” where a batch of random sounds—bells, beeps, electronic twiddle and more—insinuate themselves intermittently over a deep-breath rise-and-fall backdrop. Everything here is constructed with grace and certainty. MacLean’s layers are solid and perfectly placed to complement. I’m glad this one has resurfaced, sounding as good as it does. Across for Show... is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from AtmoWorks.

Mingo, Guide to Invisibility

On his latest disk, Guide to Invisibility, Mingo weaves a tapestry composed of texture and sensation. Dark drifts and repurposed slivers of sound form the backdrop of this immersive work. Largely beatless outside of the sinuous pulse of the title track, Guide slides along seamlessly and subconsciously, rich with feeling and well-crafted sound-images. Listening closely reveals Mingo’s usual depth of layering. There’s always a lot going on under the surface, each piece composed of stacked, complementing elements. The closing track, “In This Final Dawn,” is particularly deep, with moody drones and wobbling slashes of sound. Even when he keeps it simple, as in the mournful lament of the beautiful “Long for an End,” there’s much to listen to. My highlight track here is the aptly named “To Lose Yourself Completely”–a guided meditation through a realm of sharply edged shadow. (And another spot where beats make an small-yet-effective cameo appearance.) Better for you to experience it than for me to try to describe it further. In fact, you need to experience all of Guide, because after listening to it three times straight through non-stop and without once breaking the surface, it has definitely become a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available at CDBaby.

Ministry of Inside Things, Ambient Elsewhere

At the heart of any CD from Ministry of Inside Things is the endless potential and possibility inherent in a live, largely improvised performance. Keyboardist Chuck van Zyl and guitarist Art Cohen have been at this long enough to develop that perfect wordless chemistry that lets them take off from an agreed-upon starting point and then simply explore, trusting that they're both headed to the same spot. The new disk Ambient Elsewhere is a double disk of live pieces that truly showcase not only this chemistry and trust, but also the duo's range. MoIT span styles from straightforward sequencer-and-guitar Berlin school work to dark, experimental explorations.The pleasure of listening comes from the comparisons and contrasts. They can work the slow-paced melody and dub-echo vocal samples of “Science Fiction” as well as the precise pulse and bounce of “Poor Alice.” Cohen’s smooth, reverb-laden guitar twists around itself and van Zyl’s floating keys in the easygoing “Dubzilla,” which then arcs into the challenging space created in “Markzilla,” where Cohen assails his strings to produce unearthly sounds as van Zyl rolls sinister sound-clouds behind it. Over the course of 13 tracks on the two disks, MoIT lays down a lot of superb tracks, and (again) the variation in approach, the occasional bits of risk-taking, and the practiced give-and-take make it an engaging joyride for Berlin School fans. With an offering of this size and the nature of what MoIT do, there’s an occasional sense of sameness, but it’s always rescued by that “where will we head now” improvisational instinct to keep the pieces’ identities separate. Favorite tracks include “Poor Alice,” with more of Cohen’s excellent and hypnotic dub work; the brain-soothing drift and wash of “Aphelion Season"; and the simple grace of "Icicle Falls."

Available from Synkronos Records.

Parallel Worlds, Shade

Bakis Sirros returns with Shade, a new set of dark, uptempo visions that blend danceable grooves with shadowy atmospheres. Every track is washed through with sinister sonic subtext. Sirros’ music always has a strong narrative feel to it. It’s workable stuff that’s worth a listen, but I find it most palatable in a shuffle. Unfortunately, the Parallel Worlds sound can get a little “samey” for me at times. “Compulsive Mechanics” derails the similarity, sounding like a walking tour through a robot’s inner workings, but blended with a bit of a beat and underlying melody. The closer, “Ungreat Certainty” is another enjoyable departure where a thick, twanging bass note resonates over a basic drift. It’s lovely in an unusual way, elegantly simple and effective. Best track here is “Urgency,” shot through with drama, glitchy beats, sequencer-based suspense and they’re-after-me vocal samples. Three tempo/tone shifts across its 8-minute length give it a scene-by-scene feel.

Availalble through the Parallel Worlds web site

Resonant Drift, The Call

Two things are different about the second Resonant Drift CD, The Call. The first is the addition of guitarist Gary Johnson, taking RD from being Bill Olien's solo secret identity to a working duo; the second was a move toward a quieter, more contemplative and (ahem) drifting feel than on his previous disk, Flow Mingled Down, with subtle tribal overtones in the mix as well. On this Steve Roach-mastered disk, Olien and Johnson craft layered soundscapes that conjure open spaces and shadow-painted lairs, the sacred places of our ancestors and in our minds. The Call moves through hushed, meditative drifts (“Understand Now,” “Deep Calls Unto Deep,” and “Answer”), dark explorations (“The Question” and “Breaking Free”) and intense rhythmic tracks like the superb “Invocation,” where a tribal beat punctuates long-drawn pads. And when Olien and Johnson meld these styles into a single track, it works very well. I find myself awakening, for lack of a better word, in the midst of “Beneath Strange Fire,” having been lulled by its calming, darkness-edged drifts. My mind responds to a gentle sense of expectancy that arises and I come up with the sound. A beat slips in under the sound for a few minutes before fading, taking the mind quietly downward once more. The Call works very nicely as a quiet, looped listen but will also hold up played at volume. I like this new direction Bill Olien has taken. In fact, I like it enough to suggest that The Call is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available at the Resonant Drift web site.

Steve Roach, Landmass

Let me start with a disclaimer: This will be a thumb-on-the-scale review for me. Landmass is an excerpt from Steve Roach's post-Gatherings set in the WXPN studios during Chuck van Zyl's Star's End radio show in April 2007. I was lucky enough to have been invited to sit in on this set. It was two in the morning when Roach took off on this journey, having earlier transported an appreciative crowd during his 90-minute Gatherings concert. I had driven from Massachusetts to Philadelphia that morning and hadn't rested so needless to say, by two in the morning I wasn't entirely perky. Plunked down on a comfortable couch in the studio, and prepped for travel by a tasty local beer, I drifted in and out of sleep for the next hour and a half or so, slipping away to a calm passage and then waking surrounded by the constantly evolving sound and seeing Roach, still standing in the dim studio light, performing sonic alchemy behind his keyboards and laptops. This disk lets me recapture that, and also to hear more fully the genesis and movement of this live set.

With any luck, you'll remain awake while listening to Landmass because it's a great disk that's well worth the listen. Pulling from the sound-set and sensibilities of recent works such as Arc of Passion and Stream of Thought, Roach blends the tweak-and-rhythm groove of analog synth and sequencer lines with the horizon-spanning reach of sweeping drifts. "Transmigration" opens the disk with a metallic beat rebounding off a whirl of electronic twiddle and a steady drone and pads that spread and evaporate. Roach blends this into the darker feel of "Cerulean Blue Sky Over a Seared Desert Wasteland" (there's an evocative title for you!), perhaps my favorite section of the journey. There's a stronger sense of urgency here, courtesy of an intricately tangled thread of electro-burble and a tribal rhythm conjured from the circuits. Glassy chords rise up and fade like heat shimmer. Roach cross-fades these elements back and forth, lending each a few moments of prominence at a time. The beats melt away as Roach slides into “Monuments of Memory” and “Alluvial Plain,” the sounds spreading and softening to windswept washes. This is a gentle 20-minute stretch. Sonic callback is behind "Trancemigration" as the computer-perfect cadence of the sequencer drifts back in and picks up the energy level. Landmass departs quietly as Roach winds the proceedings down with the calming "Stars Begin." I'm not sure if this was the actual end of the set but if it was, it was four in the morning, I was just getting back to my hotel, Roach was on the radio, and I drifted off, quite pleased with the day's events, unaware that I'd have this superb chance to experience it all again. Get this disk for yourself; it's another great, highly listenable example of Roach's live mastery.

Available from the Steve Roach web site.

Steve Roach, Byron Metcalf & Mark Seelig, Nada Terma

I came into Nada Terma predisposed to liking it. It’s the latest in the tribal-sacred lineage that began with Mantram and continued with Wachuma’s Wave (with Roach more in the producer's seat), two disks I enjoy and keep in rotation on the iPod. I knew that I would find myself in another dreamstate drift of arcing synth pads and dark swirls of sound twisting with serpentine intention around breathy flute, all empowered by shamanic drumming. Nada Terma, I'm pleased to say, carries the concept in perfect form. The first 20 minutes alone would make a fine CD, as an ominous drone curls beneath Amaresh Mark Seelig's call-from-beyond flute and hushed phrases of overtone singing to create a lush, meditative environment. It opens mind and spirit to Metcalf's drumming, which enters after a gorgeously deep and rumbling bass overtone note parts the veil. For me, the drumming is a highlight, as it is on any Metcalf outing. Here, the practicing shaman's percussive elements—the thrum of a frame drum, the tinny click of clay pots, the insistent rattle of seed-pod shakers—become the ingredients required for a deeper, soul-level reaction to Nada Terma. The first few minutes of the fifth track, a bit of a drum solo for Metcalf, resonate spirit-deep. As in the disks that came before it, Nada Terma strives to create a sacred space for the listener, a secluded refuge for the mind and spirit. And it succeeds—beautifully.

Available at the Steve Roach web site

Steve Rose, Twin Earth: Collected Ambient Works

I’ve kept Steve Rose’s suite of gently flowing guitar-based ambient in my iPod rotation for a couple of months now. It lives there quietly, making itself known now and then. While it’s not a groundbreaking or particularly innovative disk, it’s a solid handful of very listenable pieces, and especially pleasant mixed in on shuffle mode. Rose plays with a calm, sure hand. He knows his way around guitar effects–very little here sounds like a guitar until he intends it to–and structure. His pieces move slowly, chords like soft pastel marks on his aural canvases. It’s good background stuff that stands up to scrutiny and doesn’t wear thin easily. Rose can also switch it up, as evidenced by the tribally tinged “The Haunted,” with grim chords over a steady drum beat. Twin Earth is my first exposure to Steve Rose’s music, and I’m looking forward to more.

Available at CDBaby.

Bruno Sanfilippo, Auralspace

Expect to get comfortably lost in the breathy drifts and long-horizon washes of Bruno Sanfilippo's latest outing, Auralspace. The seven tracks here exhibit a patient grace as they're crafted in velvety tones with the occasional bit of rough edge left on for texture. Overall the feeling is one of shadowy contemplation, excellent for quiet looping. "Mimosa Hostilis" starts the disk off with the high, slightly disonant trill of a flute that fades away to long pads accented with bird sounds.(This may be one of the first ambient CDs to not only mention on the inside cover that bird sounds appear on it, but to also bother to identify the featured species--which in my book is pretty cool.) There's a church-organ feel to the synth here, bringing an appropriate sense of quiet reverence. The flute reappears toward the end, a nice touch to bring the piece full circle. "Imagined Reality" is constructed of fairly straigthtforward synth pads and downward-spiralling electro-glissandos with space for breath between them, bolstered by a simple tribal beat for a nice classic sound. The title track eases in with broad sweeps and a slowly building rhythm. I like the almost tinny sound Sanfilippo's chosen to put in the forefront here. It adds an intriguing mechanical edge to the piece. "Divine Moments" wraps the listener in a warm coccoon of sound--a perfect 10-minute meditation that eases the breathing and calms the mind with its gently wavering pads and the soft vocal samples that slip in toward the end. This moves into "Poema Electronico," where a heavy drone and urgent flute cut a path through a darker space. Sanfilippo hangs a sense of uncertainty in his pauses, and shifts the mood subtly at the halfway mark--lightening slightly while not losing the edge. "Pampa" is an easy-drift piece of long, smooth drones with the right amount of electronic tweakage at the edges to give it a spacey sensibility. Auralspace closes with "Surreal Sense," the longest track on the disk. Light and pulsing, it's a nice spacemusic-style piece with a nicely implied beat. Sanfilippo takes the pulse and morphs it across the 16-minute span, keeping its identity fresh and interesting and bringing the whole disk to a quiet, satisfying close. Each piece on Auralspace has room to fully establish its identity, the shortest clocking in just to the thin side of 8 minutes. And within those spaces, there's no sense of too much or too little. It's a well balanced disk. In addition, the work is presented nicely, with artwork by Sanfilippo himself. For its quiet beauty, depth of construction and the way it just gets better on repeat play, Auralspace is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from AD21 music.

Sense Project, The Sublime

A bunch of years ago there was a short animated film called “Closed Mondays” where a drunk stumbles into a museum after hours and all the artwork comes to life in little tableaux as he watches. I was reminded of this as I made my way through the 2-disk gallery that is Sense Project’s CD The Sublime, watching with my mind's eye as Robert Logan's compositions came to life. Logan brings together a broad array of sonic sculptures, tone paintings and electronic sketches, each with its own inner life and story. The pieces range from softly drifting landscapes to challenging, noise-based works of art. Like any good gallery, each offering deserves more than a cursory glance and yet—like any good ambient disk—it blends together richly to create an overall experience. Logan is also mindful of the layout of his gallery, the movement the listener undertakes going from one piece to the next. I’m particularly fond of the move from the ripsaw snarl that makes up the end of the 10-minute title track into the gentler, strings-flavored pastorale of “Garden” and on into “Isten” where he blends a reverent vocal chant over softly warbling drones and soaring chords. “Death and After” is another go-to track, gently crafted in slow-moving waves and accented with Frances Logan’s heart-touching violin work before it rises up like an affirmation.

And that's just the first disk. On the second, Logan strives to go darker, starting with the cave-wind growl and bestial cello snarl of "Erdo" and the chitinous static skitterings that crawl across the darkly dramatic washes of "Mantis Religiosa" and carry into "Prime Mover." The following track, "Shards," is by no means an easy listen at first, thick with glitchy bits of sound that feel like they were gently edited with a chainsaw--but as the pieces moves forward Logan smooths it out into longer pads that mark the beginning of a somewhat less grim tone to the disk. "The Lamb" enters on rising chords that shimmer slightly. They pare down as the listener enters a graceful piano passage--Logan's playing here is nothing short of elegant, hung with breathless pauses between notes. "Voice of Many Waters" moves from dark to light, complete with birdsong. "Cimbalom" comes in to challenge the listener once more, chugging like an uncertain machine and tinted with residual angst. Logan ends The Sublime with the aptly titled "The Beautiful," a cleansing 15-minute track of sustained and layered pads that closes the disk perfectly.

For its range and depth and seamless sonic narrative, The Sublime is also a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Sensitive Chaos, Emerging Transparency

Another interesting and engaging ride on Jim Comb’s blend of New Age, jazz and electronica. Best bets here: “Fifty Light Years from Home,” which starts as a languid and beautiful ballad bolstered by Brian Good’s soulful sax, and then goes all tweaky-funky and upbeat for its second half. Hit repeat to enjoy this one a few times in a row. Also: “Bazaar Behavior,” where Otso Pakarinen’s synth guitar work shreds and rends the air before giving way to more of Good’s sax as Combs lays down a loping percussive backdrop. This disk is getting a lot of airplay, and with good reason. Check it out at senstivechaos.com

Sleeping Me, Cradlesongs

Cam Merton, head of Hidden Shoal Recordings, has a real knack for finding highly talented guitarists making music that exists on that grey border between deep ambient and simply instrumental—Slow Dancing Society and My Majestic Star, to name two. Into this mix comes Clayton McEvoy, recording as Sleeping Me, and his superb debut disc, Cradlesongs. Moving from balladesque pieces that showcase McEvoy’s straightforward playing blended with a restrained electronic hand to deeply processed ambient washes where the guitar takes on a set of new identities, Cradlesongs is an easy, engaging listen that glides through this borderland and takes the listener along for the ride. The split comes at about the middle of the disc. The first four tracks are packed with lonely-guy-with-a-guitar-at-midnight melancholy as fingerpicked notes hover and fade over sighing background tones. The layers here are nicely packed and deep, bringing a pronounced dimension to McEvoy’s sound. There’s a palpable patience falling between the opening notes of the first track, “Empty Cradles.” You can sense McEvoy listening to each one fading, waiting for just the right time to take the next step. And you wait right along with him, and the next step always seems right. “First Cell, First Love” is sculpted in softly pulsing tones in a clockwork-perfect rhythm. “Tired Hearts” is a love note that makes the most of a simple, repeated downward-twisting motif, light-handed bass accompaniment and an echo as long as a sad memory. “Legs Like Gravestones” has takes a folk-ballad feel and coats it with a wavering gloss of electronics to create something that feels like the soundtrack for deciding whether or not to make that "sorry, did I wake you" late-night phone call. “Edgdon Heath,” the fifth track, starts the transformation toward a more amorphous sound for the guitars. In this section of the disc, I particularly like “Here In the North,” a piece that seems to bring its own chilliness with it. The dominant tone here is of bowed strings played with a purposeful, almost leviathan slowness in heartbreaking chords. It drops off suddenly, leaving the listener wanting just one more pass. After the deep immersion, McEvoy brings the guitar back around for the smooth beauty of the title track, and closes with the shimmering ambient musings of “The Rattle in Our Throats.” It’s artists like Sleeping Me, and his guitar-based stablemates, that keep me looking toward Hidden Shoal for intriguing new work. Cradlesongs is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.

Available from Hidden Shoal Recordings.

Strom Noir, Luvyoo

Emil Mat’ko finds a quiet spot somewhere between drone, drifting ambient and transmuted guitar textures on his new release, Luvyoo. Sculpted from a chunk of raw melancholy and painted in hues of peaceful brooding, Luvyoo eases past the listener over the course of eleven subtle tracks. Mat’ko builds his pieces in flowing layers culled from his virtually unrecognizable guitar and augmented with warm, watery synth pads. The sound is deep and constantly in motion-- each piece is pleasantly put together with no bumps or jarring. Mat’ko creates with a solid, even hand There are no real standouts here, although “Quiero Ser Santa” is notable for its darker tone—grim-edged, with the distinct twang of harshly played strings. It works, but it’s of a different feel than the remainder of Luvyoo. Overall, this is a suite of floating, richly textured, moody and largely unobtrusive ambient-guitar pieces that makes me ready to hear more from Strom Noir.

Available from Databloem.

Ian Teesce, A Traveler's Guide to Mars

I’m going to suggest that it’s not out of line for me to say that when I receive a disk that is openly the soundtrack to a planetarium show, there are certain things that I can reliably expect. Like tracks with titles such as “Passing Through the Comet’s Tail” or “Twenty Six and Two-Thirds Million Light Years from Earth”—and, along with them, some well-intentioned but not always effective musical interpretations of said themes. So it was with a fair amount of reservation that I sat down to give a deep critical listen to Ian Tescee’s A Traveler’s Guide to Mars. And while it does start off with the very Jarre-esque, head-bopping, “c’mon, kids, let’s take a ride in a spaceship!” funk of “The New World,” it’s actually a decent album of well-constructed and well-played pieces (and without too many obvious Red-Planet-derived titles). I could sit with this disk and play the pick-a-reference game all day (hmm, who does this guitar riff sound like?), but it’s easier just to say that ...Guide to Mars is a thematically-driven CD that never lets its theme run it over. It’s not a disk I’ve put into heavy iPod rotation, but it’s one of those that, while it was in my review queue, could pleasantly surprise me. I particularly like the cool-guitar ease of “Earthrise,” the gentle glide of “Beneath the Ice” and the pairing of the folksy, loping pace of “It’s Time to Go Back, Part 1” and the more aggressive rock guitar flair and Pink Floyd-ish vocals of its partner, Part 2. (Again, play “name that guitarist” while this one's on. ) “Billions and Billions of Stars” with dramatic piano and simple synth backup, is an excellent closing track. Discover Mars for yourself at www.iantescee.com.

Various, Message from a Subatomic World (Hypnos)

A Hypnos compilation, quite simply put, is a thing worth getting. Period. Hypnos head M. Griffin (and I have said this before) not only pulls forth the best from his contributors, but he then links each piece without so much as a speedbump between them and without ever disrupting the disk's overarching theme. Message from a Subatomic World offers up ten dark-edged, droning ambient works, each rich in individual character while cut from the same somber cloth. This is my advice regarding this CD: set it on repeat, put on the headphones or lay down somewhere dark and quiet, and take the time to just be in it. As the music pares down to long, soft-edged drones you’ll calm right along with it. On repeat, the effect becomes exponential with each pass. And almost like a meditation chime, the high-pitched vocal chant that ushers in the opening track, Austere’s haunting “Crystil,” gently announces that a new cycle has started. Following Austere's opener comes the appropriately reverential overtones of Even Bluetech's "Sacroanct," its church-like quietude broken by the shrill opening sounds of Relapxych.0's "Distant Radiance"--a passing disturbance that eases into its own meditative space. Numina offers up the gorgeously lush flow of "Nadir Ever Spirals," one of the disk's highlight tracks. Jason Sloan's "faded.forgotten[trace]" drifts through like a waking dream, Sloan twisting a slight trace of drama around his steady drones. From here, Message gets very minimalistic, and beautifully so, ushered in by Phaenon's brooding "Quantum Silence." Stephen Philips lightens the voyage slightly with "Down Deep," a genuinely relaxing drift where tones languidly nudge one another aside. The seemingly unwavering and decidedly hypnotic guitar-based drones of True Colour of Blood's "Choosing to Remain Blind" still manage to feel like they've got something to say. This piece catches my attention every time it rolls through and takes my mind even deeper. An apt chill runs through Svartsinn's "Cold But Strong," dense drone layers thickening and spreading across its 10 minutes. Message closes with "Icelight" from Oophoi. Here, phantom chimes clatter in the distance as a grim wind passes. There is a sense of acceptable loneliness here, and the endless expanse of an inner landscape. Motion and non-motion. It eases the disk to a close and prepares you for another journey through.

Message from a Subatomic World is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD, especially for those who like their ambient droning, minimal and just a shade dark. Kudos to M. Griffin and his artists for three superb offerings.

Various, Odyssey of Rapture

I have to admit that I like this compilation more than I thought I would. Normally, listening to the whole goth-tinged/neo-classical sub-genre makes me want to don a waistcoat and an ironic top hat and claim that I tried absinthe and found it “amusing.” It’s very easy, in my opinion, to overdo this style and venture into the trying-too-hard realm. (Phanatos’ “Voyage” is a prime example here.) But something unexpected happened when I put this music into my shuffle rotation. Now and then I’d get one of those pleasant “Hmm, I wonder who this is?” moments. And lo, it was a track from Odyssey. Admittedly, there are tracks here that don’t appeal to me, pieces that make my hand hurry to the "next" button. But the standouts truly stand out. I like the Dvorak-ish feel of Aranis’ “Vala” for its gypsy-dance overtones and ecstatic violin; Hana’s “Hide” makes the most of the blend of Jeff Greinke’s slow-motion sensibilities and Anisa Romero’s sultry, soaring, goddess-like vocals; Brett Branning’s soft-handed piano work similarly bolsters the silky Kate Bush-influenced voice of Hannah Fury in Synthetic Dream Foundation’s “Trapeze”; MePhi’s “Crystal Night” is a gentle piano palate-cleanser of quiet beauty; Fiona Joy Hawkins’ “Contemplating” matches ethereal, wordless vocals with piano that brings to mind a cross between a more dramatic Liz Story and Tori Amos; and Pete Ardron and Samantha Ray’s “Interuterion 3” is a lush vocal-based track that closes out the disk like a deep, pleasant dream. What it comes down to, for me, is that I’ll either keep these favored tracks and nix the others, or just drop Odyssey into a shuffle here and there and hope for the best. Take a listen for yourself—maybe on shuffle—and see which tracks catch your ear.

Available from Mythical Records.

Visitor, Wreckage

Here’s a gamble that paid off. Visitor (aka Brian Pike) set certain conditions in his digital software and then . . . hit “go,” essentially. There are no instruments on Wreckage. No samples. Just . . . conditions, and an occasional bit of intervention. I’m not sure how many sets of conditions Pike went through before hitting on the three pieces that form the CD, but they were the right three. Wreckage is an intriguing exercise in minimalist drone, three individual faces of the same concept, long-form flows that evolve as smooth, gently undulating soundjourneys. Movement is kept to a minimum; non-change is the driving force, and what change does come slides in slowly. This is a superb disk for low-volume looping. Let it meld into the background, and see when and how it catches your attention–because it surely will.

Available at CDBaby.

Vox Populi!, Mystic Entertainment

Apparently, the ever-evolving collective known as Vox Populi! (aka “France’s Best-Kept Secret”) has been creating free-form music for the last 25 years or so. Which would go a long way toward explaining the very diverse sounds, inspirations and styles covered in the 25 tracks on their new compilation, Mystic Entertainment. Stylistically, it’s a mixed bag—even the band’s bio material notes that they cover “psychedelic musics, Persian folklore and all kind of mind elevating sound form[s]”—but it’s all quite well done. The playing is gorgeous (and on quite an array of instruments), the vocals are enchanting... Of course, mileage will vary according to what you like. I’m not all that fond of the folksier, more traditional tracks like “Crespuscle sur Alamout,” “Douneye Achk” or “Charob,” but neither am I inclined to hurry past them. They don’t grate on the ears, they simply don’t land squarely within my field of appreciation. On the other hand, when the Vox folks go a little deeper, funkier and more electronic, I’m readily along for the ride. I can’t get enough of the bouncy groove of “Be Modar,” with its catchy, almost pop-ish hook. “Gol Beckarim” finds a nice middle ground with folk-song vocals over a trippy rhythm and electronic chirps. “Doumai v3” is a short, dark, minimalist track that’s very alluring. The stripped-down simplicity of the meditative, vocal-driven “Le son est ton nom,” with its backdrop of light drum and just the right touch of electronics, is one of the best tracks here. I would suggest that Mystic Entertainment can be a welcome addition to any shuffled playlist. Just keep an open musical mind.

Available from Infrastition