Alias Zone: Lucid Dreams Alias Zone: Lucid Dreams (CyberMotion - 2001) A sonic travelogue of sorts... think of Lucid Dreams as a semi-mystical (yet fun) roadtrip with Alias Zone (Blake Arnold, Richard Bugg, Chris Meyer, Keith Snyder, Lucky Westfall, Richard Zvoner and friends) in a retrofitted schoolbus crammed full of instruments and samples... they're steaming through a heat-drenched neverworld between ethnic music, current electronics technology, electro-organic soundscapes and astute artiness. Nature noise soon receives an influx of rippling synthsounds, bouncy bass and drifting flute layers as Phunque evolves into a lightly jazzy tribal excursion. A moodily sweltering expanse of feedback and drift is overlain with the trippy (and nicely delivered) spoken poem-noir of I Have Stopped Dreaming; musical elements filter into the backdrop. Soft and dreamy Sunday 2AM (Driving) (4:40) buries various locational samples in its meandering musicality topped with adroitly trilling flute. Modern-ancient drumsounds, dangerous guitar storms, freefloating flutes and half-audible conversations are only a few parts of the sprawling tapestry which is Towards the Dawn. Above the thrumming bassline and ethnicized syncopation of whirling Dervish are trilling flutes and tweeting birds. With quite a compelling groove, Without a Prayer blends cultural sounds into a melting pot you can move to. Dust settles in with lighter moments... soft piano notes, organic textures and cushiony synthstreams. Electronically-altered chant leads into The River (8:05) where we hear prolonged dialogues (from Alias Zone's Bugg as well as Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson) woven into a backdrop of restrained ethnoambiance. The disc closes on a shorter "radio edit" of I Have Stopped Dreaming; which, most unfortunately, won't be heard on your average radio station, but don't get me started on that rant... Lush production means each segment of these Lucid Dreams exists in several planes at once for entrancing audio-envelopment. Deft musicianship, thoughtful post-processing and the atmospherically wordly results thereof means that Alias Zone rings up an appreciative 9.0 when they pull into my ear-filling-station. Sample for yourself at the Alias Zone website. This review posted May 31, 2001 AmbiEntrance © 2001-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).