Various Artists: Where Stalks the Sandman Various Artists: Where Stalks the Sandman (Noh Poetry - 2001) Various Artists (from the venerable Kim Cascone to lesser knowns) have gathered to explore the strange ambient soundscapes of Where Stalks the Sandman. Generally quiet in their eclecticisms, these pieces stretch the boundaries of their hyperprocessed sound sources to the limits of their creators' imaginations... Like standing on the fringe of some desert-floor maelstrom which slowly churns, Kim Cascone's "Pythagorean Sea II" rumbles and shimmers for 13 entrancing minutes. "Ars Moriendi" (whose sound sources are a glass light globe and a tile floor) from Monocaine rides over some unknown void on crests of resonant waves and troughs of quieter audio-emulsions . The big, slow undulations of Steven Wilson's "A Grapefruit in the World of Park" (huh?) features even-more-pronounced here-then-gone activities, sourced from a 10-second sample of Robert Fripp. With flutey rasps and bubbling lows, Karen Anderson renders Ouroboros" (5:29) as a slightly grittier darkness which writhes in its own shadows. Don Falcone steers "An Isolated Craft" (25:58) through a spacious void of ghostly resonance marked by the beacon flashes of oddly twinkling tones. Except for a few garbled transmissions, the political message of "Fascism (Bush Klan)" by Praxis is buried in the viscous smear of tribalish beats, bleepy tones and swirling synthspirals. Six tracks add up to almost 72 minutes of digitally altered soundscenes. Where Stalks the Sandman? In the hills and valleys of unknown sonic terrains rendered in the surreal 8.3 ear-art of these Various Artists. Visit the Noh Poetry site for further reading and listening. This review posted July 31, 2001 AmbiEntrance © 2001-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).