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 | Falling You:Mercy (AdAstra - 1998) I can already hear the whip-snapping sound of knees as they jerk in reaction to... electronic/ambient sounds with female vocals! This first effort by AdAstra's Falling You (John Michael Zorko and Jennifer McPeak) very nicely pulls off a marriage between two styles, that most folks would say would never work together... |
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Such unions have been successfully done before, of course. Delerium's Karma or Love Spirals Downward's Flux are slickly produced examples by seasoned veterans, but Falling You's maiden voyage admirably makes the blend...
The first 2 minutes of the intro, Prelude, are chaotically unmusical, but then shift into drift mode as lush synth strata swells and contracts. Similarly-styled waves open When Will It End?, soon to be joined by a scruffy, mid-tempo beat, then by Jennifer McPeak's earnest vocals. Think pop ballad, with an angsty twist to the lyrics backed by electronic ambience. The track degenerates to a hazy collage of piano notes, synth effects, echoes and quiet samples.
No Voice again features Jennifer's pained lyrics and set to a pretty melody with Zorko's piano/electronic accompaniment and sometimes echoey e-percussion. Deep electric growls give way to lulling piano tones, beneath which beautiful darkness swirls in the instrumental Lament. Without the deliciously macabre backdrop, the piece would be considered new age, but as it is it's lovely. That track segues, with the addition of a fairly perky breakbeat and somber organ chords, into Mercy which, despite its inherent gloom, sounds to me as if it would do reasonably well on contemporary pop charts. Whether that statement equals praise or damnation is up the individual, but the track is nicely done. Call it ethereal goth-pop? The Dream Begins is a short (1:17) interlude, a sonic cascade and wordless intonations... followed by the long-running (8:41) Halloween. A heated blast reveals hazy piano notes, soon to be overlain by Jennifer's dreamy vocal. A spacious, yet spooky, arrangement evolves into a misty re-working of "Where Will It End" where phantasmic synth chords and piano notes swirl around a low beat. Whispered samples are heard from within the sweltering haze. The track closes with tribalistic drum patterns. The pace is picked up by Running Still, which features an expanding aura of plush synthtones swept along by persistent beats, over which an Oriental zither (or something like that) is plucked. The Dream Ends is a longer reprise of the same bits of "The Dream Begins", with things being more densely mixed up this time through. Another ballad, Glacier echoes with McPeak's resounding cries. With her aching melody and Zorko's tumultuous background electronics, I'm thinking this would have made a better "Titanic" movie song rather than that Celine Dion thing... Dense and steamy describes the opening of Feathered, the disc's most ambient track. Layers of pulsing and hissing haze intermingle with Jennifer's distantly rising/falling call, long sensual synth strands, and the occasional gull. Toward the end, the pulse fades and everything dissipates like a fading memory, to segue into the too-short Reprise, closing the disc on a billowy cloud swirl, delicate piano and wind chimes (and who let a horse in here?). |
| The worst case scenario for Mercy is that it may be too vocal for ambient listeners, and too abstract for pop fans, when really both camps (and most folks in between) should find some enjoyable elements bathed in Falling You's new light. It definitely deserves my One Thumb Up.
Falling You has a very attractive website if you'd like to learn more. |  |
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