Nick Parkin: Entropolis Nick Parkin: Entropolis (Soleilmoon - 2001) Nick Parkin embarks upon an ear-tour of a decaying city... Entropolis ("entropy" + "opolis", get it?!) Percussion, flutes, samples, keyboards receive serious dosages of various treatments and Mac processing, their effects as unforgiving as rust and erosion, rendering the origins of the sources unknowable. Shifty gleams and sudden outbursts reverberate through the dank subterranean passageways leading into entropolis where musical tones erupt fitfully in the shapes and violence of noise. Ominous drones and mechanically chittering patterns are roughly swept by shearing currents within the vault. Virulent, swarming airwaves thrum and swish with Corrosion. Lighter streams flow across distillate in high, keening shrillness, until everything breaks down in abrasive expulsions which sound like a thousand scrambling, hungry insects at microscopic closeness. Less strenuous (and more captivating) rumbles ring from the chasmic pluvial void. Initially things get particularly bizarre with an injection of thallium (8:29). Then the crazily spiraling convolutions begin to drift away in a cascading roar and sheen. A resonant haze creeps like the residues of night (5:13) hovering over soft mechanical hums. The disc closes on the windlike streams and alien atmospheres of eurus. While I appreciate the conceptual thematicism, in actuality these tracks are often too "active" for truly ambient listening; the forces of decay within can be relentless and swift in their aggressive permutations, so file Nick Parkin's dark 8.3-rated travelogue of Entropolis in your experimental section. Nick has yet another new Soleilmoon release we'll be investigating in the next upload. This review posted August 31, 2001 AmbiEntrance © 2001-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).