MORPHEUS MUSIC REVIEWS

Deep pits of abstract sound, out of which arise rhythmic lattice-works, billowing cloud masses or twinkling shapes of crystal and light. The opening track is full of brooding mbience, roiling densities and weightless winds - in contrast, other pieces feature tonal blips, deep bass pulses or throbbing sequencer patterns. At times, grey and ominous like some huge musical engine lumbering out of the mists, at others with a reforming of the atmosphere, the prospect brightens and opens out into grace and beauty. Sequencer sections progress through some broad parameter sweeps that reach right to the very edge of perception, these are further enhanced by carefully placed percussive layers. Interestingly all of this variety is smoothly mixed together into one long mix with no gaps between tracks.

From serene and heavenly to regular and mechanical to ashen, austere, amorphous ... Aurora covers a lot of emotional ground. Out of shapeless, shadow and darkness, sparkles of light repeatedly hint at a beauty hidden somewhere within that arises fully only on the final title track itself - here, like a celestial dignity encircled with insubstantial geometries and vapour trails Aurora ascends amidst transcendent glory and effulgence.

Aurora comes about three years after Ian Boddy's previous solo studio release Box of Secrets back in 1999. However Ian was not idle in the intervening years collaborating with other artists, performing in concert and developing the DiN label featuring some other imaginative electronic artists. Some of the material on Aurora - Gravity Well and Ecliptic reappear on the live album Chiasmata recorded in 2003. A sleeve note tells us that the title track is formed around a sixteenth century piece - Kyrie from Missa Papae Marcelli by the composer Palestrina ... it certainly is a powerful conclusion to a wide ranging CD.

MORPHEUS MUSIC REVIEWS

Beatless, cinematic, dark-ambient of an epic nature. Heavy swells and oozings of tone suggest a crawling viscosity, whilst minimal throbbings within the mass of the music hint at a living entity. Although ambient beds form the bulk of the sound, surface details in the form of tappings, wind sounds, muted chimes and echoing percussive structures add to the complexity of The Starwheel - often these are at their most distinct during the intros and outros. Pieces often seem to sway slowly or to rise and fall like an enormous breathing thing. Rumbles and dense currents of harmony create a powerful gravity throughout.

Weighty, shadowy slabs of sound - thick with layer upon layer of texture. Kammarheit's sound is a brooding, almost eerie one, yet not disturbing, in fact there is a serenity, a comfortableness here in this dimly lit world. The Starwheel is a suite of eight ponderous pieces mixed seamlessly into one, portending an unseen vastness, a monumental scale. Perhaps influenced by Kiktor Kvant's the inner cover art, associations with immense machinery, colossal wheels come to mind.

Hailing from Sweden, this is Kammarheit's second album - released on Cyclic Law. A consistent CD with a profound mass full of emotive drones. Pär Boström produces aural environments that feel like soundtrack material - track titles 'A Room Between The Rooms', 'All Quite In The Land Of Frozen Scenes', 'Spatium' carry the same sense of the enigmatic that the music embodies so well. Whether the overall effect is one of melancholy, foreboding or simply drama depends as with much ambient) very much on the outlook of the listener.

MORPHEUS MUSIC REVIEWS

Colourful, moody ambient music with some rhythmic and percussive features. Twilight In The Offing is built around gradually unfolding tonal layers and shadowy planes of sound - where beats are present they are gentle, within the mix, not dominating. Hints of melody lie in places deeply embedded in the dense sound base where the heaviest of shades thicken and subside being overlaid with eddying currents and swirls above. Gurgling effects at times ripple and murmur across the surface as the weighty lower frequencies rise and fall. The drones on this album are tenebrous, doleful in some places - celestial, ethereal in others.

In keeping with the title, Twilight In The Offing suggests something dimly lit, ponderous and shifting. There is a pleasing organic feel to this strongly electronic sound, emerging periodically into brightness, luxuriating under a luminous sheen, or shrouded in gloom with dense colourful entities turning somewhere within, at times even desolate even cold. Chad has said that the CD represents his attempt to sonically capture the concept of inevitability - darkness follows dusk, fall and winter follow summer, expiration of life being the ultimate certainty.

Released on the Hypnos label - Twilight In The Offings consists of seven lengthy pieces all between five and ten minutes long. This is Chad's debut release and has been mastered by none other than Robert Rich. Track titles reflect the idea of inevitability with some beautifully poetic terms 'Crimson Lost', 'Enveloping Shadow', 'On The Eve Of Plum Frost'. This is an ambient album that can hold the attention - from the beautiful 'In A Marooned Moment' to the disquieting 'Enveloping Shadow' the considerable variety of sound from one track to the next pulls you along, caught one moment by a percussive line throbbing way below the surface, swept up the next by cinematic undulations or uneasy in the presence of looming apparitions.

If you enjoy sighing drones and atmospheric ambience - Twilight In The Offing might well be for you. Very much in keeping with Hypnos' emphasis on ambient/space/experimental music.

MORPHEUS MUSIC REVIEWS

From fresh, sparkling ambient electronica to arpeggiated downtempo and neo-classical - Albedo is a journey of style as much as content. There are dreamy piano lines and radio static with fleeting operatic snatches, on Kalaallit Nunaat (the original name for Greenland) a manipulation of parts of Elgar's cello concerto combine with cool melodic electronic overtones and synth pads, Synch 24 establish an urban environment with murmured lyrics and insistent beats. There are subtle hints of ethnic sound among the electronics - percussion, violin - nothing too dominant. Voices whisper in undertones- chopped up, effected. The first half of this CD is exceptionally beautiful with the emphasis on natural elegance and crystalline grace - gradually the album progresses deeper into rhythm with pulsing basses and stronger trance influences until Vir Unis' crepuscular Light Curve leads us off into the impressionistic piano of Sunset.

'Ambient refractions and kaleidoscopic grooves' mixed by Nova. Albedo features artists both well established and relatively unknown such as Between Interval who provided the delightful track Wishful Thinking where the suggestion is almost that of a prayer for the day to come. Artists performed and recorded their contributions at diverse global locations such as Japan, Sweden, America, U.K and each is recorded with its latitude and longitude. Nova says of the idea behind Albedo - It’s simple but we don’t think much about the fact that we have just one Sun and it spreads its offering to the whole planet: cities, forests, North, South, countries at peace or at war. I think it’s a very democratic process or “routine” and we should be aware of its might.

Albedo will suit anyone already into Ultimae's trademark sound - ambient atmospheres and light percussives that often intensify into restful trance beats. If you're enjoying this year's exploration of chillout environments, you won't find anything much better than this CD - Nova tells a compelling musical narrative.

MORPHEUS MUSIC REVIEWS

As with the previous Cellosphere Ayres continues his application of classical background to ambient experimentation. Processed electric violins, cellos and violas are here layered in waves of beatless tonality, not melodic as such, but often very harmonious with repeating motifs that gradually morph and alter form. Lengthy drones make up most of the substance of Neptune - at times these are clearly made by stringed instruments at others, the source is less obvious, the sound more ambiguous. Some pieces such as 'Upon' feature heavy eddying currents of sound others drift, meandering gently. Effects are employed generously to enhance timbre, bringing more colour and subtle nuance into play. Some pieces focus on one instrument, some on all three - including the seventeen minute twenty-eight second 'Drift'.

The mood on Neptune is serene, warm, hypnotic - like fluid beds of sound in which to sink or submerge. Ayres is a master of subtle variation of intensity and dynamics; his wandering tranquil mixes lulling the listener into reverie, some tracks being suggestive of solitude. Neptune has a dense structure in many places, sometimes weird, almost eerie where effects are most heavily applied. Tracks are in the main shorter on Neptune than on Cellosphere - ten in all.

Neptune includes two short videos on track one and so the track listing shown on your player might not match what is being played if you don't take this into account. The films are by Peter Gomes, one shows Marvin playing live at the Camden Remix Festival in 2001 and the other is a close up almost abstract recording of Marvin playing Under Blue (literally), which is also on the main album. Sleeve text includes the note "Within the process of writing this album I have tried to capture my personal reveries through the guise of 'Old Neptune'" this oceanic imagery adopted for the album works well - with titles such as Wave, Tug, Drift and Swell echoing the nature of the audio content.

MORPHEUS MUSIC REVIEWS