Overviews represent the overflow of listening material from each month; older releases, eps, unsolicited material and/or slightly off topic discs may find their way to these more condensed reviewlets. Always a variety to choose from in this department! Cyberchump: Dreams Groove   (Internal Combustion - 2000) (8.2) Dreams Groove contains a lot of both... "I want... brainwashing" is just one of the messages conveyed through wacky samples in NerveNut, a jammin' slab of electro. Quietly pattering tribalbeats lead into Drums in Sleep to be joined by swaying basslines and hypnotizing guitar duets. Backed by beats and static-blasted radio voices, transcendentally serpentine bass and guitar weave through Stalking (3:09), heading into tropical territories. The Force offers some jangly, rockin' fun; in this track and others, "borrowed" samples appear, often to amusing effect. Soft freeform soundstreams flow through Crytalize (7:35), buoyed by big lolling basswaves peppered by hyperactive cymbalism. Besides the panoramic guitar-meets-electronics tunescapes and clever musicianship therein, you've got to give Jim Skeel (High & Low Guitars, Samples, Loops, Machines, Manipulations, Keyboards) and Mark G.E. (Keyboards, Monster Bass Keyboards, Accordian, Theremin, Machines, Noises, Voice) some credit just for possessing the cojones to name their project Cyberchump! Darshan: The End of Days   (Darshanmusic - 1999) (8.5) Certainly not to be confused with the soundtrack from the apocalyptic flop of the same name, this The End of Days is an exploration of truly gentle proportions. A certain classic ambient shapelessness is embodied in Softness of the Late Afternoon as pastel soundcolors wash over its 10-minute-plus surface. Wafting on repeated tone-mantras, Walk Along the Ganges seems to tread through puffy clouds, while Bliss Wave (14:15) hovers on flatter streams of audio-ethereality, adorned with spacious, soft piano musings. Some of the more overtly instrumental (keys, strings, flutes, harp) pieces (like Love is the Door to Heaven (3:44) and The End of Days Part 1) approach a new age sappiness (or happiness, depending on your personal tastes) but all are undeniably tranquil in any case. The plaintive piano melody and synth-orchestration heard in Satie's Garden is genuinely pretty, heart-tuggingly so. The disc closes on the suffused golden radiance of The End of Days Part 2, making The End seem a rather to-be-welcomed occasion. Simple beauty! Darshan is one Michael Allison who can listened to at his iuma page or e-mailed at darshanmusic@aol.com. Garden of Dreams: The Seraphim's Desire   (Seraph - 1996) (8.2) Timeless Goth-ereal beauty swirls in the hazily lilting synth notes of Dream Facet, while drinking from my soul (7:55) is a drift of soft shapeless soundwaves from which practically-subliminal vocals rise. A delicate wash of piano phrasings are infused with womanly operatic tones as Distance (4:43) proceeds upon faraway thunder. Electronic ambience thrums through a remix of track 4's distant wails; The Innocents? (Deranged/Second in Line), then is further charged with a rhythmic presence and robotic rapchant. All the ache and loveliness that Goth should be (plus more) is regrettably short-lived here at 31.5 minutes of listening. Quite nice stuff from Chicago's Seraph label. Undagroun: These Songs Changed My Life   (HPC - 2000) (8.1) From his basement studio, Mark Hopson is rolling his own electro-tracks as evidenced by this 4-song ep. The hypotically spiralling grooves of Round on 3 (6:51) lead into his beat-driven world of trancey synthmagic. The diva voice gets a bit overused in Changed My Life (8:00) but otherwise the track grooves pleasantly enough, mixing a couple of modes of operation. Burbly bassnotes ripple beneath the dance-ready vibe and race-conscious (though slightly repetitous) spoken samples of The Truth. The disc concludes with a somewhat-remixed version of track 2. Promising homegrown works which obviously come from the heart. Look forward to takes on some of Hopson 's vinyl releases coming soon. Information: Successor   (Beatservice - 2000) (8.4) 99 smoothly adjoining tracks (from 0:04 to 3:50) play continually as an extended 72-minute tableau of ever-changing sounds and music ranges from soft atmospherics to drumstick-slinging beatfests to whacked-out experimental craziness to subtle ethnomusical expanses. Each of the tracks (even the seconds-long fragments) have numbers and quirky titles like avoid alcohol during a meteor shower, the double tracks of the Trans-Siberian railroad, 40 000 pills of vitamin A and wireless radioconnection is established. The arrangement of such disparate soundscenes is handled with amazing dexterity, and is worth a listen just for that accomplishment. Of course, the real fun begins when you hit random-shuffle mode and the almost-100 snippets play in unpredictable orders and the disparity is no longer seamlessly flowing... instead they're buzzing, oscillating, drumming, hovering, squeaking, bursting, bleeting, warbling, etc., etc. It's like having a neverending supply of esoterically retransforming listening... if you're bold enough. Lagowski: Europa Reprised EP.   (General Production Recordings - 1994) (8.3) From deep space to deep house... stylistically these tracks are worlds away from Andrew's latest S.E.T.I. release, Pod, although beneath the dancefloor shaking beats of these six tracks, a dark spaciness does glimmer. Three different remixes of energetic Europa open the 33:42-minute disc; except for a few similar elements, the arpeggiated electro of the YO3 rendition, the dreamy-yet-driving Lagowski version and the rambunctious Hy-Ryze take don't even seem like the same song. A certain sci-fi feel (including spoken samples) injects the electronically throbbing Atomiser. A beatless swirl of electronic communications and cavernous drones, Cypher (1:41) precedes the Beaumont Hannant version of Pile Driver (8:02), a buzzing, hissing industrialized presence with sporadic, not-as-danceable, drumming. Bill Laswell, etc.: City of Light   (Sub Rosa - 1997) (9.0) Globe-spanning bassist/producer Bill Laswell, with such stellar cohorts as Tetsu Inoue, members of Coil and others, leads a transportive journey through an ethno-influenced fantasyland. Lori Carson's spoken word interludes are of an exceptional caliber; all too often such spiritual/transcendental speak comes across as just plain silly, not to mention intrusive. Effective delivery and actually captivating content though mark these several passages as noteworthy listening points along an otherwise ethno-ambient trail of percolating tabla rhythms and swirling sitar drones (as in entry piece, nothing). Four tracks (equalling 44:48) include the hypnotically rising/falling mantra of mysterious kála (13:06) which is underscored with subtle locational recordings. A faint, daybreak-like haze opens káshi, its stillness being joined by a soft solo chant, then Carson's whispery phrases. By this stage, one wonders if Las forgot pack his bass for this trip; his muscular dub-riffs have been notably missing from these ephemeral, multicultural soundcollages... then, in Above the Earth, it is heard, reverberating alongside looping female chantisms and a shifting cloud of resonance and faraway animal life. Very nice stuff! See Laswell's newest relase, lo.def pressure for another Indian adventure, with more of a drum'n'bass motivation. Nature (TM): In a Gentle Mood   (Cleopatra - 1996) (8.1) I don't dive for treasure in the old cheap bins as often as I used to, but still enjoy digging in when I can. That's where I uncovered this trancey little number, remembering having heard a Nature (TM) track on some forgotten comp. Harkening back to the formative days of modern electronica (remember those early '90s!), fairly laid-back electronics are backed by lively, self-replicating beatsystems and e-basslines. Fluttering synth effects leave one feelin' mellow even as the percussion is percolating. If you don't mind a little bouncy repetition, tracks like walk with us (13:16) won't drive you nuts with their singular groovestructure. A cute little pseudo-Western bassriff permeates Happy Trails. A pleasant diversion which won't go down in history, but is worth a few spins just for the light-and-liveliness. Robert Scott Thompson: The Silent Shore   (Mirage - 1996) (9.2) For 70 reality-banishing minutes, Robert Scott Thompson spins soundworlds with such apparent effortlessness that spacey surreality seems just natural. Gentle wafting atmospherics seep into your listening zone with the aptly-entitled soundwaves of DreamSong (8:31), a track showcasing the disc's claim to explore both the lighter and darker realms of the ambient genre... which it certainly does. Weird animalistic laughter-of-sorts opens Spirare, which then floats into an ethereal fogbank from which flutey streamers and twinkling electronics occasionally emerge. Edge of Stillness (1:21) delivers a short-but-sweet piano interlude which cascades across skywardly straining synthstrings. All is not illumination and lightness, though... darker and more obtuse realms exist. Erin Outback for instance, is laced with tribal beats, robotic mechanoise and shadowy dronings. The odd "eeyo buhwo" voices of NightVision add a strangely whimsical (and not entirely welcome) presence to an otherwise excellent spacescape. A lovely spookiness sneaks along the twisted pathways through Gloassalalia Interestingly, two "alternate playback orders" ("Opaque" and "Translucent") of eight tracks each are suggested to provide different listening experiences. The Silent Shore deserves to ranked as an ambient classic. Meet the man behind these impeccable nocturnal soundscapes in our exclusive Robert Scott Thompson interview. S.E.T.I.: Knowledge   (Ash International - 1995) (8.5) While Pod is the third and final installment of Andrew Lagowski's S.E.T.I. project, it all started with Knowledge, a 37.5-minute technology-scanning soundscape of four tracks... barely decipherable transmissions discuss electronic surveillance from within and without in the gritty, cloaking haze of gathering (7:17) which resonates with a dark mechanical thrum. Drones, squeals, clicks, pops, hisses, dismebodied voices and the occasional industrial-strength electron blast surge through the dark sonic miasmas of concealment and knowledge. Depending upon your own level of technoparanoia, you may float easily or uncomfortably in these soundwaves. Somewhat softer, journey ripples with unimaginable energies, etched by unrecognizably transformed voice patterns and airlock hiss. Compared to the newest S.E.T.I. tracks, these are denser, longer-flowing and equally enigmatic in their dark, science-fictionesque sonics. Learn more at Andrew's own website. Posted August 30, 2000 | 1999/2000 Overviews Index

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