AmbiEntrance Overviews are smaller, self-contained review nuggets of older releases and various miscellany. You'll find 53 Pre-1999 Overviews preserved in the AmbiEntrance Archive. Jeff Aug: Before Then After   (protozoa music - 1998) (6.3) Not ambient, though a few tracks on the solo guitar CD Before Then After come fairly close, like the hypnotically resonating layers of the opening track Dolphinwave. Other tracks, like the almost-ten-minute-long Funky Acoustic Groove Thang Part 1 are (not surprisingly perhaps) straightforward, and skillfully played, jam sessions which are evocative enough in their own way, sometimes blending murkily into atmospheric reverb hazes. I must confess, it was actually rather refreshing to get my head out of the ethereal vapors it's usually immersed in, and soak in some serious strummin' and pickin' of one man and his guitar, sometimes aggressively rocking (though never metallic), other times gently caressing, pretty much always interesting. Jeff Aug is a Washington DC guitarist, produced by South Germany's Corrosive Media. Sound samples can be heard at their website. For more properly "ambient" guitar sounds though, please see this month's Jeff Pearce and David Tollefson reviews. Orb: Orbscure Trax: The Rare Excursions   (Island - 1997) (8.1) An hour's worth of reworked Orb, these Orbscure Trax are, shall we say, thorough in their remixology... generally unrecognizable from their previous incarnations. So, even if you already own their original form, these seven cuts will be quite different. Even the oft-heard "Little Fluffy Clouds" could escape detection were it not for the occasional Rikki Lee Jones snippets which bubble to the surface. Several tracks are reappropriated from the Orbus Terrarum album, including an extended 15-minute-plus, drum-heavy reworking of Plateau (parenthetically dubbed "AndyÍs Dub"). The others (Occidental and Oxbow Lakes) are much more ambient with much more spacious atmospheres in which bits and pieces of the original tracks waft and wane in various states of alteration. Synaesthesia: Desideratum   (Hypnotic - 1995) (8.4) Don't let the smooth dancey sounds of the opening track fool you, the sounds from the two-disc Desideratum are 95% deep interstellar floatations of the most lush variety. Track lengths range from almost 7 to nearly 16 minutes in length, with both discs combining to 2.25 hours of dark, spooky, sometimes rhythmic space music. Bleeps, drones and angel choirs comingle with instrumentation like the occasional space-piano, or intergalactic string section. Titles like Subversion, Dark Cores, DNA Barcode, Orion Nebula point toward the not "too" serious frontiers ahead. Dark yet fun, groovy star-trippin' from Lieb and Fulber (aka Delerium, Front Line Assembly, etc.) Valis: Destruction of Syntax   (Subharmonic) (7.6) A definite street-wise streak runs strong through Destruction of Syntax, a collection of various artists. Collectively entitled Valis the artists were "called down by Bill Laswell", who adds his dubby bass signature to his opening collab with Automaton, Ex Machina. Jazzy horn riffs and those scritchy turntables are only a few of the urban atmospheric effects employed. Other tracks (by DJ Spooky, Spectre and more) include ear-bending amounts of samples of rappers, sirens, arguments, screams, and subway trains. The prominent feature of most cuts is the Beat, present in various degrees of hip-hop swagger and metropolitan grittiness. Personal standouts include DXT's Twisted Tables which overlays a cool groove with a spooky theremin-like synthline. Somone turned the recording levels way up with Conveyor by Corporal Blossom, a loud acoustic guitar jam/synth fuzz-fest. Return to February's Main Page | 1999 Overviews Index

AmbiEntrance © 1999-97 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).