Jim Cole & Spectral Voices: Sky Jim Cole & Spectral Voices: Sky (Spectral Spiral Music - 2000) Without the aid of overdubs, instruments or processing, Jim Cole & Spectral Voices achieve ephemeral a cappella excellence... Within a 120-ft. water tower, Cole, Alan Dow and Sharen Baker entwine their voices in upwardly spiraling choruses of formless beauty. Sky is filled with unbelievable audio-apparitions as the trio outsings any music-making device... Haunting traces of almost-monastic tunefulness seep from the amorphous streams of vocal drones which are For the Birds (14:31); call me incredulous, but I'm still amazed that these sounds are simply untreated voices... of course, they're "overtone" singing within a large-yet-confined space, and the results are simultaneously thrilling and soothing. The uninterrupted flows allow time for contemplation; one can ask questions like, "When do they breathe!?" Lush, diffuse choral strands rise and fall with Kyrie Eleison's continually surging vocal drifts. Ever-expanding layers seem to trace a distant, gently meandering shoreline in human-powered tones that no synthesizer could hope to mimic. A four-part section, Passion opens with its 10-minute title piece wherein those slightly monk-like vocal chords wash back and forth as if floating on slow-motion waves, and when everything recedes, the loveliness only becomes stronger. The breathy currents of closing track Know Way (Way) (4:10) are highlighted by the ringing harmonics which dance above all like an aural aurora. Sky isn't the first time Jim Cole & Spectral Voices have united in ethereal song with "the water tower"; for a little more behind-the-scenes insight, read Jim's response to this month's QOM question... Fill your space with nearly an hour of unparalleled vocalizations... a 9.1 for human soundscapes which reach shapeless, superhuman heights. This review posted September 30, 2000 AmbiEntrance © 2000-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).