bigover.gif My loss is your gain! Being laid-off from my day job makes for more time to catch up on some overviewing (including several golden "oldies"). So enjoy!

Aphelion: I - VI   (Iris Light - 2001) (8.4)
Six tracks from ex-Cradle of Filth guitarist Stuart Anstis deviate from his previous black-metal output, adding up to 34 minutes of enticing beat-driven electronica. Splashing cymbals and pummeling drumhits are wound into deep swathes of spacey synthfloes as I opens. Raucous D'n'B stylings explode onto II's whirlingly Middle-Easternish tapestries. Wailing female vocalizations of unknown origin and energetic beats adorn the elastic, expressive synthstrings of III.

Mysterious moods are evoked in bloopier V (4:38), then injected with body-moving technogrooves and suitable levels of rhythmification. Old-school rocksounds infiltrate as Deep Purple-style organ chords power through VI (7:51), simultaneously blasted by hyperactive drumming and caressed by womanly croons. Nicely done!

Dark Star: travelogue II   (Soleilmoon - 2000) (8.2)
Enigmatic dark-space-synth-rock emanates from travelogue II, a re-release of a 1996 predecessor which adds four new tracks. Legendary Pink Dots members and others contribute to W. Reffert's intergalactic soundvisions; the distinctive voice of Edward Ka-Spel tops a few sci-fi-electronic soundscapes, sometimes charged with rocking drum and guitar elements. Wordless opal grooves along on a sludgy riff with haunting keyboarding and celestial echoes. Yorgos DK sings lead in cosmically funky frantic upstream. Overly repetitious phrases mar the slice of life... you can only sing "big black hole" so many times in a row before it starts sounding quite silly.

A more-than-10-minute excursion, go beyond, but... layers cool beats on variously drifting synth strata, deep chords and bass meanderings, shifting into less-structured zones of spiraling amorphousness. The newer (vocal free) material includes creaky, sparse solaris I (2:52) (tossing a little billiards into the eclectic mix) and longer version, solaris II (14:14) which expands on the previous themes, introducing plodding beats, pulsating synths and glimmering atmospheres.

While the few bits of lyrical material don't do much to transcend the rock realm, the energized, spacebound instrumentals are definitely captivating. Learn more about this starlit entity at the Dark Star website.

JM Glover: Within You   (JM Glover - 2000) (7.8)
Pretty and rendered with genuine affection, JM Glover's tracks are a bit more dancey than my usual fare. At their best these ten dancefloor-ready synth-and-drum dreams make for pretty good Robert Miles impersonations, blending dreamy atmospheres with groovable rhythyms. At their worst, the tracks (though lovingly assembled, I'm sure) amalgamate a collection of previously-heard dance cliches (my personal peeve is "overusing the same sample again and again" as in Your Eyes Seem To Touch Me, an otherwise lovely drift of beatlessness).

Murmered inanities of love ("You're so beautiful", "Do you like what you see", etc.) pass between a man and woman underneath Speak To Me's pulsing vibes and sweeping synthstreams. Sweet and perky Life in Leather bounces on a familiar booty-shaking bassline; its stringsounds continue into the next track, Hong Kong Gone where they're given further synthesis and processed diva wails.

Neosymphonic swells waft through Within You (3:43) to be sprinkled with lite piano notes, whispery male words and peppy percussion. Streaming string textures glow as Before To Long (2:39) closes the show with its lush ethereality punctuated by mid-tempo e-drums. Hear for yourself at mp3.com.

Hollydrift: hail the frozen north   (Cuba Club Media - 2000) (7.8)
A (precisely) fifteen-minute listen into the fractured soundworld of Hollydrift's M. Anderson reveals everchanging sonic forces and grittily nostalgic moods. From 50s-era string orchestrations to various distorted radio voices to spoken word to howling winds of desolation, Smile For Me slips seamlessly from one unreal zone to the next. Rhythm-powered smears of music warp through more-tuneful (though druggedly so) Lost In Flight (4:46), a churning, cloudy mass joined by murkily buried vocals. A medical emergency opens Buried By The Briar (5:08), another series of morphing sound-scenes, followed by rainfall, assorted fragments of airwave communications, hovering drones, faraway clatter, a robotic weather report and cavernous spaces. These gloomy ruminations were "recorded in true analog tape format" which adds to that sense of distance, in both time and emotion.

Horizon 222: thethree of swans   (Charrm - 1994) (8.4)
More from the Zoviet France side-project; the disc opens on a little political upheaval with justice (long to rain over us) then launches into sunshiney walking on the air; hints of dubby basslines, an oft-reused rasta-speak sample and later, a thunderstorm add an island flair to the beaty musical mix. A brief interview segment (with a few trippy effects) discusses hemp (for fun and profit) (0:41).

A bit of cosmic contemplation (through a series of spoken musings) is woven into psychedelic one small dot (14:10), which gradually develops from a sinuous groover into a stomping raver, dappled with ethnic overtones. Tibetan-monk-like ululations cut through the beatless, brassy haze of love shakuhachi's hauntingly vague terrains. After a cool swing through the rhythmic shimmers of the last supper (massacre mix), the mystical mystery tour concludes with illuminum (the one true name) (2:10) a final zone of radiant energy and disembodied conjectures.

Chris Meloche: Distant Rituals   (Silent - 1996) (8.5)
The "distance" factor is up to you... play it low, and remote industrial slurs seem to hover and drone miles away, their echoes reveberating across vast and unknown spaces... or turn it up, and feel as if you're trapped within the heart of some foreboding alien machine. Seven of eight unnamed tracks are 10-minutes each; their rumbles, whispers and thrums flow into each other, spreading into a continual 71:27-long expanse of wafting bio-mechanical esoterica. Supernatural shimmers wisp in and out of organically churning goo and/or mysterious apparatus-hum. The final track (1:27) thins out, with fading streamers wavering into the void. It's all rather isolating... or perhaps strangely comforting, depending on your outlook. At any rate, it's quite a classic of immersiveness!

Muslimgauze: Veiled Sisters   (Soleilmoon - 1993) (9.2)
One of the more-filmic/less-aggressive entries I've uncovered in the vast Muslimgauze library of ethno-drum excursions, this two-disc set (62:30 and 66:13 respectively) weaves loads of conversational Middle-Eastern fragments and locational sounds into dreamily drifting expanses marked by light beats and more-than-usual filtered-guitar strums. Multiple pieces are combined into three long tracks per disc; for instance, the first cinematically unfolding track (24:58) encompasses Shamal Aquabah, PLO Flag, Veiled Sisters and Dust in its hypnotically arid grooves, dusty drones and variously populated scenes. Softly thrumming ethnic strings and humming electronics are dappled with almost-delicate pecussive elements in Oil FIeld/Mohajir (14:39), often whirling in a dreamlike slur.

Draped in shimmering curtains and decorative cymbal accents, the second disc (a.k.a. Sister two) performs similar transportive illusions, bringing three (or twelve) more exotic otherworlds into your ears. Behind the light drum sounds of the third track, containing Pasha, Farouche Charpoy, Halal, Sadu and Zupol, a looping gauze of airy guitar shimmers. Highly recommended for the extended atmospherics, if you're not offended by the politics of the "Dedicated to the PLO..." message.

perpetual ocean: houdini   (Origin - 1998) (8.3)
An easy-to-swallow 13-track blend of exotically rendered pop and sonic experimentalism opens with the electrotribal groove of Lament, crowned by wordless female crooning. Softly sung Beatle-esque ballad Limes floats on synthorchestral waves and thunderstorm ambiance. Sliced, diced and reversed fragments are reassembled into Radio Egypt's ethnic-electric stylings.

Incantation's moody computerized atmospheres contain an intriguing robotic duet of female-speech-synthesis "vocals" speaking in non-letter characters. A whirling ethno-percussive murk appears as Incubus (0:49). Whipping winds and flute flavorings blow through intstrumental On Ghost Dog Ridge (7:21), where unobtrusive guitar strands and glowing organ chords unfurl to the beat of metallic glints, evoking mystic moods.

Sorrowful-yet-stirring The Mariner's Chart takes pop-style female voice to new heights with its classical string-and-woodwind instrumentation. Overall a nicely produced package of transcendental musical hybrids. See the perpertual ocean website for more.

Time2: Time2   (Fax - 1996) (8.5)
Big names for a reason... Tetsu Inoue and Pete Namlook collab in this Fax offering. Of the four tracks, opener Bypass Mood (4:28) is the shortest by far (the others are 17 minutes or more). Sort of a freeform electronic jazz number with organ-ish tones and ambient drifts being pelted by scattered drumbeats. In the lovely wash of Free and Flowers (25:01), shapeless swirls levitate in a buoyant zone of spattering cymbals and faint synthsequences. Eventually other musical entities get fractured before slipping into a peacefully cavernous realm of tonal floes where bird-like cries ring from crystalline walls.

Trailing strains of the previous track turn into Turn, growing a bit more turbulent and sprouting a cooly grooving jungle-istic drum pattern. Assorted electronic activities twinkle, stream and/or bleep, slowly morphing between various more-then-less modes. Amid weird background warblies, an incessantly-repeating six-note robot-carnival riff in the early stages of I've got Chillness Illness makes want to gouge out my eardrums with a knitting needle, but by the six-minute mark the track evolves into less-annoying, more-improvisational forms of e-drum-and-synth scatting.

Asmus Tietchens: Sinkende Schwimmer   (Barooni - 1991) (8.2)
Sonic experimentation abounds, beginning with the enigmatic blurts of Neue Menschen which sound like mutant dogs barking, or alien babies with bad chest colds. In a blend of hazy noise and avant-garde musicality, Speeclus 2 (6:24) sounds like a piano being indelicately dissected, the resulting sounds blurring deeply away into reverberous distances (and again later, in Speeclus 1). Folienschall trickles with underwater piano notes and strange ripples.

The screechy balloon tones which open Kuzer Ballonflug smear into wavering drifts, wafting high and low, as if searching some vast space. Distorted animalistic outbursts seem to engage in an otherworldly debate during Herr und Hund (1:22). I see Thomas Köner is mentioned in the "Produktion" notes. (Being pre-"Friends", I assume the Schwimmer in the title isn't the lovable TV goofball from that show; but it puts a whole different spin on the eerie sounds within if you think of it that way though...)

Boyd Rice: The Way I Feel   (Caciocavallo - 2000) (7.9)
The liner notes lead with... "This is an album about feelings. Those of you who only know Boyd Rice from his rather brutish and insensitive noise music will no doubt be surprised to discover the sensitive, at times passionate individual lurking beneath his often gruff exterior..." This of course sets up the on-going joke in which Boyd's show of feelings are a collection of dark-humored vignettes where no one is spared from his scathing denouncements...

Looping, loopy 1960s-era rhythms and brass streams comprise the opening "instrumental" Theme from Pearls Before Swine. Over brass, bass and piano retrotunes, Hatesville's soft-spoken words advocate anger and hate. Similar straight-talk offers persuasive revelations against the weak in Equilibrium, backed by dreamily wafting guitar and choral sweeps. People (6:08) emits a soft bed of lightly jangling six-strings, from which Rice asks quietly, "Do you ever think about what a lovely place the world would be... without all the people... who make life so unpleasant?" then proceeds to focus on various despised groups and potential lethal remedies.

Coil provides the dark symphonics and explosive developments of wordless Many Hands. Other thoughtfully twisted, definitely non-PC observations compare modern society to sadomasochism, or denigrate love in a male/female duet; cruder displays mimic the village idiot through babbling incoherencies, or bring a blunt Andrew Dice Clay approach to Why did the Feminist Cross the Road (0:37) which say more about the speaker than the subject. Is it just for shock value, or do Rice's words carry a certain amount of creepy authenticity in his feelings? Not for the easily offended.

Various Artists: 1x   (Dark Duck - 2001) (8.1)
The first of an ongoing monthly series from Dark Duck was relased on 01/01/01, beginning a new millennium with a new vision of Various Artistry... labelmeister Stephen Philips has gathered sound sources from a plethora of sonically-minded folks, remixing the contributions into one 48-minute-long outpouring of communally experimental sound... Pops, clicks and drones predominate opening track, xx1x while spacey ripples propel x1xx into sci-fi mode.

Bubbly flutterings percolate throughout x11x, to be backed by deep, swaying tides. A cyclic blipstream pips as unidentifiable rufflings shift beneath 1xxx (8:59). With an undeniably mechanical presence, xx11 (3:36) closes the collection in buzzy darkness. Definitely more experimental than the label's usual output See this month's full-length of more recent 2x for further insights...

Posted March 28, 2001 | 1999/2000 Overviews Index

AmbiEntrance © 2000-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).