LongWalkShortDock - Casual Tea (Original TC Review)

Lunarian Records: 2009

(2022 Update:
Talk about a flashpoint in time. While I can't say Mr. King's career ever took off at a global superstar level, he's certainly become one of the premiere fixtures on the American West live P.A. circuit. This was written shortly after his first, almost innocuous performance at the Shambhala Music Festival, but it wasn't long before his annual sets turned into one of THE weekend highlights every year. Not too shabby indeed.

As for the music, this has held up pretty well. Yeah, it's definitely a product of its time, but the songcraft holds strong-style in spite of whatever Ed Banger-era attributes drip through. It almost feels like a forgotten album in Dave's catalog now, his profile growing much larger after the fact with the headbangers as heard live. No time for sentimental downtime when moshing away with stage flailers, I guess.)


IN BRIEF: Criminally overlooked.

(2022 Edit: Removed an overlong, unneccesary anectdote that served as a lead-in; just get to the point, 2009 Sykonee!)

Some of the best bangin’ techno albums I’ve heard - Speedy J’s Loudboxer or L.S.G.’s The Black Album, f’st’nce - lose something at a purely primal level when listening to them from the comfort of home, which unfortunately also loses part of the appeal of what makes such music work. It’s rather impractical to be lazing on a couch with tea while beats are blasting out of your speakers, urging you to get your flailing mosh on.

Such concerns arose when it came to the debut album from up-and-coming local-scene hero Dave King; aka Longwalkshortdock. Given the Northwest’s isolation from the rest of the world, it wouldn’t surprise me if our overseas readers haven’t heard of him, especially so because King has made his reputation mostly on the live circuit (ask anyone who’s seen him at the Soundwave Music Festival, and you’re sure to be met with an outpouring of hyperbolic praise). Without a doubly-doubt, he is a sight to behold live, as King seemingly turns into rubber, flailing about as he serves up an excellent entre of ready-made maximal techno mosh and chip-tune thrills. His stage energy is highly infectious, with tunes that tap into the best aspects of techno bedlam, any show quickly turning into a rockingly rowdy gathering. How, then, can you possibly transplant that intensity onto an album format?

Frankly, you can’t. So it’s just as well that King hasn’t tried. Instead, Casual Tea presents itself as a proper album, with tracks of various styles, tempos, and length. Hey, it worked for Liam Howlett, and while this truthfully is no Jilted Generation, there are plenty of things about LWSD’s music that still works in an album context. Let me detail a few such things!

Actually, the opening track is as good an example as any. Will I Dream contains a bunch of elements that sum up King’s tunes nicely: nu-electro-funk, maximal-aggressiveness, 8-bit glitch, dreamy melodic backings. Okay, so that sounds par for the course for a lot of electronic music these days, but here’s the catch: King does it better than many another. His beats, though admittedly brick-walled in the production department, hit you with force and purpose, urging you to wildly wobble about just as much as the man himself. When his synths are cranked to the red, it still sounds clean and clear, not cartoonishly distorted like many an Ed Banger tune. The chip-tune bits are effectively handled and the backing melodies are just trancey enough to let your mind float on. What makes all this better though? It’s the fact that the track keeps moving forward, constantly building upon what came before. After some six minutes, from where you’d expect a track of this sort to wrap up, King unleashes an extra assault of funky goodness. Why he do that? He don’t need to do that. But he did do that, and Will I Dream is so much better that he did do that.

Many of the cuts on here work this continuous build, sending his tracks to energetic highs few contemporaries seem willing to go. Horse Fly, I’m So Bad I Make Medicine Sick, High Expectations, Knowin’ That You’re Goin’ - all strong examples. Beyond that, though, King keeps his album fresh throughout by dabbling outside this field. Of course, you have your electro-funk numbers, but how’s about something more on the industrial side in Born At Night or I Will Kill You With Techno, where he drags his synths through gravel pits and distorts his voice in such a way that would make Cabaret Voltaire happy. Melodically blissful tracks Keep It Round, Sara Purple, Warm Girls, and Why Do I Bother prove King’s more than just a one-trick maximal pony, and the all-out chip-tune closer You Can Have It is a hoot, only missing some actual NES themes as has been known to be heard in his live sets.

And dammit, some of King’s tunes are just undeniably catchy. The clear highlight - High Expectations - is already a wildly fun bit of warbled techno, but I dare you to resist bellowing out in unison “I want someone who grabs my soul, and sets my heart on fire!” during the track’s chorus. Go on, try. Ah-ha, I knew you couldn't.

Casual Tea is as strong as any EDM debut you’re likely to come across these days - it easily trumps several other albums that have received gratuitous amounts of promotion in recent years. Even if you’ve grown rather sick of nu-electro tropes, the infectious energy King has infused his music with will have you throwing such cares to the cliffs. Despite LWSD’s profile being nearly nonexistent outside of his local scene right now, an album like this clearly proves he has the chops to make it on a larger stage. With luck, Casual Tea will help push his career to higher pastures (even without the need to resort to a gimmick like a mouse-head). If not, well, you can always say that you managed to grab your hands on a true underground classic, one that will end up being worth stupid amounts of coin at Discogs a decade on.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2009 © All rights reserved

The Future Sound Of London - Cascade 2020

fsoldigital.com: 2020

You knew this was high on FSOL's 'remake classics' list. Cascade already had the distinction of being the first in their 'every single is now a mini-album' manifesto, and it kinda' showed. For all the elements in play with the track proper, Brian and Garry didn't take it down terribly divergent 'paths' compared to later efforts with their EPs. Which is expected, still in a feeling out process of just what they could potentially do with all the new gear they acquired after signing with the mighty Virgin. Brian even says they simply didn't have the technology or know-how at the time to create the sort of music sloshing about in their brains. Still, capital effort in the results, y'know.

Time munches on and hey, wouldn't you know it, technology and know-how finally caught up with ambition, such that FSOL can't stop releasing material if they tried! Having seemingly exhausted their Environments muses for now, it seemed appropriate to revisit some of their back-catalogue, give tunes the sort of care they only dreamed of back in the day (or in the case of Yage, never got the chance in the first place).

If it seemed like I didn't get into the finer details of the original Cascade, it's because I knew there'd be ample opportunity to do so here. The opening track, appropriately enough, is the original track, claiming to be a 'recreation'. It honestly sounds very much like the version as heard on Lifeforms (so sans the little electro bridge two-thirds through), though obviously beefed up in the production department. And yet, I can't help but notice a slight filter on everything too, as though I'm hearing it from another era. Nah, must be some trick on my brain's nostalgia centres, I'm sure.

Now we get into some truly divergent paths, Flood Of Reflection, Deep Sea Of Clouds, and Things That Mattered stripping things down to spare rhythms, subtle pads, and sample collagist works. Meanwhile, Amid The Overwhelm, Dark Hours Of your Being and Sluice get their psychedelic acid stomp on. Elsewhere, techno's pulse can still be felt with Multiple Falling Objects and Brief Silence In The Distance, while What Falls Away Is Always gives the trancey arps of the original's bridge some solo shine. It's funny how such synths almost come off the most dated attribute of Cascade, a relic of the early '90s.

And hey, if you still prefer the older sound of London, we do get some continuation of the original EP, with Part 6 and Part 7 sprinkled about (plus another 'recreation' of the grittier Part 4). Part 6 certainly sounds of that era, an airy rendition that isn't much removed from The Orb's most ambient moments. Part 7 ends Cascade 2020, which really isn't much more than a coda to everything that came before. And hoo, if there wasn't a lot that came before. More than anyone who liked Cascade could probably want, but eh, that's been FSOL's ideology for a while now.

The Future Sound Of London - Cascade

Virgin/Astralwerks: 1993/1996

I do wonder, just how much of a shock this EP was when it dropped. The lads behind Stakker Humanoid and Papua New Guinea going full sample-heavy world beat? Why we never! Yeah, yeah, calling Cascade that is almost blasphemous in some quarters, but let's be real here: 1993 was peak world beat. You already had two juggernauts of that sound making bank across the globe (Enigma and Deep Forest), with many quarters of dance music raiding all manner of sample libraries and fusing them with club rhythms. FSOL, who's omnipresent hit single was no less guilty in doing such, had to feel some pressure to move beyond the association. They had greater artistic aspirations than what rave culture was offering, so time to head back to the lab and start concocting something more evolved from their Earthbeat era (big advance money after signing with the mighty Virgin helped).

Which all seems academic from our lofty vantage point three decades on (holy COW!), but not so much in those short few years of the early '90s. Far as '93 folks knew, FSOL were crafting proper follow-ups to the warehouse techno stompers as heard on Accelerator, not conceptual art music. Oh, that Tales Of Ephidrina thing? Well, they used a different alias for it, Amorphous Androgynous, so clearly it's an album satisfying their expressionist outlet, not a sign of things to come with their most profitable pseudonym. Besides, Tales still had somewhat of a techno pulse, here and there. Nothing to suspect, oh no.

So Cascade drops, the glistening digital rendering of a neuron drawing you in. Glancing at the back cover, you notice something strange for a lead single: it's all in parts, as if one long musical piece. What, were there no remixes commissioned? Not at all, son, marking the start of FSOL handling their singles as nothing less than mini-albums in their own right, demands of clubbing culture be damned.

Still, listening through this EP, and comparing it to where they'd go with future singles, it's apparent Garry and Brian were still in a feeling-out process with this idea. Part 1 is the version most know of (if nothing else than for getting featured in the first Northern Exposure), while Part 2 is mostly the same, just in a slightly extended and dubbier version – so, the Extended Remix. Part 3 goes weirder, sounding like an extended take of sound effects and alien landforms. Why yes, they were already getting the Tangerine Dream comparisons, why do you ask?

Part 4 is where the idea of 'different paths' really takes hold, a harsher, grittier IDM tone prevalent as the base melodic elements contort around gnarly electro basslines. Part 5, meanwhile, edges closer back to the domain of regular techno, surprisingly almost vintage Detroit in execution. Jettisoning most of the 'world beaty' elements (woodwinds, ethnic drumming, etc.), there's still sonic weirdness going on along with sci-fi synths, and man, gotta' love the ol' tikkity-tik-tik drum programming there too.

Phynn - C U Smile (Original TC Review)

Black Hole Recordings: 2007

(2022 Update:
I know I seem to say this often about trance artists from the '00s, but seriously, what happened to Phynn? He seemed to do everything an up-and-comer of the Dutch eurotrance scene was supposed to do to have a lengthy career. Have a couple break-out singles playlisted by the Very Important trance DJs of the day, get his name out into other ventures such as DJing, get some snarky blog reviews written up leading to a debut album (okay, maybe not that one), and then... Profit, I guess?

Honestly, having listened to said debut and only album, Metamorphosis, I'm not surprised Phynn's future prospects sputtered. The first half, which includes C U Smile, is quite the blatant jump on Sander Van Doorn's brand of acid-fart bosh (the back-half is more traditional euro-trance fare, but only marginally better). Who knows if it was Mr. Jager's intent, or Black Hole Recordings forcing him to go in a new direction the scene was desperately hitching their wagon on, but regardless, it proved a musical dead-end for all involved as the new decade took hold. Phynn eventually left Black Hole, started his own short-lived digital print Lunary Records featuring music with a tougher, deeper techno edge, but all other social media and Discoggian info on him dries up by 2016.)

IN BRIEF: Marco V lite.

These past couple years have seen quite a few trance producers fleeing their past to embrace the chunkier nu-electro sound. Ferry Corsten, Marco V, Cosmic Gate, just to name a few. However, their transition isn’t terribly surprising, as these folks had done all they felt they needed to in that old sound. They’d prefer to move forward rather than stay in the past (even if moving forward doesn’t always translate to producing better). What does come as a surprise though, is seeing some of the names of the new generation of trance already doing the same.

Finne Jager - aka: Phynn - was early-on expected to be part of this fresh breed; his productions and DJ mixes seemed to indicate he’d be perfectly fine to carry on the Dutch trance mantle. Heck, just a year ago he was tapped to take on the long running In Trance We Trust series, a release filled to the rim with epic anthems. Surprisingly, his first single in nearly two years (not including two download-only tracks from last year, but then it's still up in the air whether those count as true singles [2022 Edit: oh, 2007 Sykonee, you silly git]) finds the young man instead leaving that sound behind and joining the ranks of producers making march-a-long tech. Is this a case of bandwagon jumping? Or perhaps Finne’s already bored with epic Dutch trance and is also looking to try something different. Fair play if the latter is so, but his offering isn’t much to get excited about.

C U Smile does everything we’ve come to expect from tracks like these, with very little innovation to distinguish from the pack. As mentioned, the rhythms are standard march-a-long in nature, causing the track to plod for large chunks at a time. The main hook is very simple, but does benefit from playing in a slightly different time signature, thus helping turn your head somewhat. Beyond that, this is a bland, forgettable techno; his club version is the better offering by a significant margin. There’s more energy and doesn’t completely rely on the main hook to sell it, with additional hooks doing a nice job between the peaks. Mind, it’s still an overly simple track, but at least doesn’t plod like the original does.

DJ Preach brings chunkier rhythms with his remix, letting his techno influences overtake the track with workable results. Aside from the additional sounds though, there isn’t much difference between his and Phynn’s club mix. Well, aside from an extended breakdown where Preach stretches the riff out somewhat, but it’s nothing more than a novel trick that adds little.

Ultimately, considering how much potential he showed in the past, C U Smile is something of a disappointment from Phynn. The track is functional but functional is very, very common in the world of dance music, and Mr. Jager hasn’t produced anything here that demands to be snatched up. It’ll work in your sets but you could find any number of tracks that do the same.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2007. © All rights reserved

ACE TRACKS: November-December 2021

And... breathe again.

Good? Okay, where are we then? Last month got off to a pretty good start – creating a pre-published backlog certainly helps – but once again, life in the Real World gets hectic and distracting. I was determined to get that pile of 'B' albums done before the end of the year though, and by g'ar, I got there.

Which leaves me ready to review the final clutch of albums I'd like to call the “Before Blog Re-Launch Block". Yep, this is actually, for realsie-reals, honest-to-God the last little bit of my old music collection within sight, a small pile of 'C' albums left un-listened to since 2012. A whole decade ago. Good gooey gravy, who'd have thought I'd still be doing this so many moons later. What even was life that long ago now?

Of course, even after I get through this, that doesn't mean I'm finished reviewing my entire music collection, oh no. There's all the stuff I've bought from this past year (it's... a lot), and who knows how much more in the coming years hence. So long as musicians I like keep releasing music I like, this blog will never end, mwa-hah-ha! Or until the interweb as we know it ceases to exist, rendering text-based interactivity moot. It could happen, in my lifetime. Anyhow, here's the ACE TRACKS from the final two months of 2021:


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Private Mountain - Blue Mountain
Pentatonik - Anthology
Various - Adykt
Pete Namlook / DJ Dag - Adlernebel
Various - 001005
Intergalactic Federation - 1/2

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock: 20%
Most “WTF?” Track: Nothing overtly egregious, though I'm sure the excessive amount of Neil Young will make some go cross-eyed.

Boy, good thing I did extend this playlist across two months, 'cause ain't much from November available on Spotify. Darn deliberately obscurist ambient techno labels. If you can get your Local Files to fill in the gaps, the full playlist runs nine hours, mostly thanks to a whole pile of double-digit breaking tracks. Guess it helps in pacing out all the Neil Young music, though alphabetical ordering somehow lumped a whole bunch of 'em at the end. Kinda' funny, that.

Ciro Berenguer - Bruma

Slaapwel Records: 2020

I wish Slaapwel was more fruitful in their musical endeavours, rather than taking the Rip Van Winkle pace their sleep-based manifesto so religiously follows. They've released but three items since I last splurged on them (if you can call scooping up three CDs a splurge), which is about on pace for their 'one album per year' rate. Oddly, their latest one from Kreng + Svarte Greiner, The Night Hag, seems like something more suitable for a dark ambient print than one promoting a well rounded circadian rhythm. Sleep terrors, really? Good God, maybe I should just start springing for digital copies of Slaapwel's older, long out-of-print items. Ooh, The Boats...!

In the meanwhile, let's check out one of the few recent Slaapwel releases I did spring for, this here Bruma from Ciro Berenguer. According to Lord Discogs, he is ...um, almost nonexistent, it seems. The only other record to his name there is El Mar De Junio (Eilean 64), released on Eilean Rec. I'm not familiar with that label, though do recognize a few names there (James Murray, Twincities, Wil Bolton). They also apparently had something of a gimmick to their releases, strictly one-hundred items, based upon points on a map. Man, and I thought the collector's OCD was strong with Neotantra.

Digging a little deeper, I did find Ciro's Bandcamp, which has one other album, and contributions to other odds 'n ends scattered about. Seems more of a local talent within Barcelona's music scene then, a musician mostly content remaining on the periphery. I suppose that's why I found this write-up for Bruma so amusing: “Listeners familiar with Berenguer’s previous work will recognize his typical minimal style with fading, constantly evolving themes.” Just how big an audience does Mr. Berenguer have such that they'd immediately recognize specific musical traits anyway? Then again, it's not like Slaapwel Records, a tiny print based out of Belgium, would have potential audiences on the other side of the globe in mind when writing their Bandcamp blurbs. And yeah, that Eilean record definitely had some abstract minimalism going for it, a far gap of songcraft compared to the more traditionalist guitar folk LP he put out many years before.

In typical Slaapwel style, Bruma features a single thirty-five minute long track titled Los Entresijos De La Noche, or “The Ins And Outs Of Night”. It, too, mostly goes for minimalist sonic abstraction, gentle guitar plucks and manipulated xylophone tones as fed through tape loops and field recordings. At many points, the piece almost fades to nothing but echoing embers of melody, as though you're finally nodding off for the night. This being over a half-hour of improvisation though, the music does re-emerge for more tranquil bells and the like.

And if I'm honest, I have a difficult time keeping attention for the duration, the lethargic nature of Ciro's songcraft here extremely effective in lulling me into a state of synaptic inertness. Another successful outing from Slaapwel Records, in other words.

Lucette Bourdin - Breath Of Grace

Dark Duck Records/Fantasy Enhancing: 2012

Back to Bourdin, then. Huh, took a little longer than I thought it would. Like, a box-set with twenty CDs in it is gonna' take up hefty chunks of my alphabetical queue no matter where they're slotted, but I suppose it shows just how large the queue currently is regardless. Dealing with another box-set between Ancient Memories and this probably didn't help with the gap.

Breath Of Grace has the distinction of being the final album of Lucette's work, released well over a year after her passing. There's actually a number of such albums, including A View From Afar and the four-LP Nordic Waves set - yes, they're all accounted for in this box-set. While it's not surprising that she'd have some music in the vaults, I do wonder what the process in releasing the posthumous albums was. Were they already in the works, and just never got to see a proper release before passing on? Did someone within her estate cobble together assorted unreleased tracks on her behalf? I suppose it doesn't matter in the long run, but whenever we're dealing with ambient music of this sort, it's nice to have some inspirational frame of reference going in. Perhaps one need not delve too deeply into such concerns, but it cannot be denied her experiences offered a unique perspective on reflective music, tragic though it may be.

If there is a theme to Breath Of Grace, it's that of entering a calming state of mind. While opener Turbulent Seas maintains a typically droning style of ambient tone, it's far from a relaxing sort. Almost ominous with heavy, spacious synth swells, impossibly distant sounds echoing from the furthest reaches of one's memories. Always those nagging reflective moments, when gazing upon foggy coastlines through cottage windows.

Waters Of Life goes more minimalist, synth drone supporting burbly, dubby field recordings, letting you feel more lost in the moment rather than trapped in memory. Following that, the titular track is pure synth pad drone, layered to such a degree the timbre is rather muddy. Can't help but keep thinking of fog while listening to this. But hey, things seem to pick up a little with Quiet Cats, a lighter tone and brighter synths emerging from the haze. From there, tracks like Finding Peace and Setting Sun only grow brighter, the former even dipping rather close to the realm of New Age with its shimmering angel bells. The relatively short closer Remembering thus feels more like a coda to Breath Of Grace, having settled into some sense of tranquility despite whatever was troubling the self at the start. And hey, a little light Arabian synth noodling in the middle of it too.

I almost feel like I'm overselling this album, with such a expansive write-up of what goes on. Eh, gotta' burn word-count some way, but as far as ambient albums go, Breath Of Grace is a nice little offering of such. Will the rest of Lucette's works compare? Stay tuned...

Private Mountain - Blue Mountain

Neotantra: 2019

Fun thing about following labels will always be discovering new artists. True, I get these Neotantra albums because my OCD compels me to grab the gradient cover art, lest my CD collection look incomplete, but the music's usually pretty darn good too. And while many familiar names have released here, several more are complete blanks to me, my purchasing decision little more than having a good hunch over some audio clips. So it went with Private Mountain, a name I'd never seen before, but ooh, that's some nice, soothing, minimalist ambience coupled with field recordings. Sure, I'll give it a go.

Then I look into the names behind the moniker, ones Dimitar Dodovski and Toni Dimitrov. I'd love to claim I recognized them straight-off, but no way I could have, even if I have encountered Dimitar before. In fact, the project he was on was quite instrumental in opening the doors to where my ambient techno interests currently lie. It was a pairing with a chap by the name of Lee Norris, under the pseudonym Moss Garden.

Yeah, that Moss Garden. You'll forgive me for not immediately remembering that factoid, for Mr. Dodovski's career was still in a relatively embryonic stage back then. He's put out much music since though, including a team-up with Toni and Martin Geogrievski as Post Global Trio. They've put out some half-dozen albums now, but on the side Dimitar and Toni started another project as Private Mountain, this here Blue Mountain the debut.

Taking in some Post Global Trio works for a frame of reference, I can confidently claim that Private Mountain sounds quite similar, just lacking any rhythmic momentum. The abstract ambience, the immersive field recordings, the hazy feelings of memories past, wandering back road regions in solitude. Like, a hillside path, all to yourself. I just find it amusing that two-thirds of a mostly ambient project took it upon themselves to make extra-ambient music.

Opener Ainmount 1 mostly maintains a fuzzy, day-glo vibe, while Ainmount 2 opts for more night-time tranquility, a surprising contrast so early in the album. Usually you wait for the end to go twilight. The titular third cut really gets my Andrew Heath triggers going, early dronescapes gradually melting into sounds of idling about cottage dwellings. Just A Strange World gets a little fancier with the drone effects, while the eponymous track (longest at over twelve minutes) gives more of a Boards Of Canada interlude vibe. If BoC ever included sounds of running water while exploring deep caverns, sounds echoing across damp stone walls, that is. A tidy, tranquil closer in Coming Back Home wraps things up, and if you don't feel utterly blissed out after listening to Blue Mountain, I really don't know what else to say.

I suppose the only quibble I can offer is this album's rather short. Six tracks, only half of which break six minutes, doesn't feel long enough wandering this mountain. Pretty sure I said the same of Moss Garden too, heh.

Unusual Cosmic Process - Between Continents

AstroPilot Music: 2016

It's been a spell since I checked out AstroPilot. Let's see what he's been up to! *clickity-clickity clack* Ooh, started his own label. With lots of artists getting rep' on it. Most of which I'm not familiar with in the slightest. Welp, better get to it. *zzi-i-i-ip* What? That's the sound of me opening my digital purse to splurge on some new music. Why, what'd you think that bit of onomatopoeia was?

So, Unusual Cosmic Process (or UCP from here out, because whoof, that's a mouthful). This is a project from Alexander Akopov, who's been making music in the psy sphere for the past decade. A few aliases had some traction on Ovnimoon Records (Optical Report, Psypheric), but UCP has been the most fruitful of them all (so sayeth Lord Discogs). Makes some sense, this alias being his primary outlet for music on the down beat. Of the twenty items Mr. Akopov has released as UCP, the bulk are LPs. His early ones floated about different labels (Ovnimoon, Uxmal, Sentimony, Gliese 581c), but has mostly settled in with AstroPilot Music for the last while. This here Between Continents was his debut with Dmitriy's print.

Whenever a producer starts their own label, the tendency is to cultivate artists of similar style, so I wasn't surprised that UCP would sound somewhat like AstroPilot. I didn't expect his sonic palette to go quite so opulent though, exceeding even the cosmic grandeur of the Solar Walk series. Mr. Akopov says this album's meant to be something of a sight-seeing tour, taking in various vistas of our planet from its highest regions to its deepest depths, carried along by acoustic airships. Sounds like fun, and opener Acoustic Levitation certainly holds little back in its lift-off, wide-screen synth pads with spritely treatments such that even 36 would get weak in the knees. A psy-chill rhythm joins the action midway through as the track keeps building and building until... oh, it just kinda' ends on pads, a bit abruptly at that.

Wendall Sea carries on with the extra-ultra backing pads, with a heavier beat in support, but mostly plays out like the opener. Sekki opts for something a little more mysterious (bathyscaphe submersion will have that effect), while Atolla Wyvillei... gosh, this sure sounds a lot like Weddell Sea again, the same beat and everything. Granted, the psy scene often recycles rhythms, but this is practically a copy-and-paste here. Not that the tracks are bad, it's just a very apparent thing with two so close together in an album.

As Between Continents plays out, it never lets off the gas pedal in sonic splendour – even the Ambient Remix of The Clouds has an aggressively groovy bassline. It's almost too much, if I'm honest, seldom letting the listener take a breather, save at the start of every track. Imagine the tour-guide insistently telling you how awesome all these sights are, when I sometimes just want to lay back and take them in at my own leisure.

Robert Rich - Below Zero

Side Effects: 1998

I bought Equal Stones' Below Zero from Ultimae's online shop. When I received my order in the mail, I somehow ended up with two albums with that title, the other this particular item from Robert Rich. How did that happen? Did the folks at Ultimae HQ not know which Below Zero I wanted, and hedged their bets? Or did they figure, if I wanted one Below Zero, why not have another? This isn't the first time I got a 'bonus' disc from them either, the last time introducing me to Simon Heath's Krusseldorf project. That led me to some... interesting music tangents, believe you me.

And honestly, it's about time I dive into Robert Rich, isn't it? I've known of the man's seminal contributions to the minimalist side of ambient drone works for a while, but like others in this field (Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana), his catalogue runs vast and ancient. Where does one even begin with such a discography? Agreed upon classics? Multi-disc retrospectives? Blind leaps based on eye-catching cover art? Yes to all, but I'm starting out with the 'unexpected extra CD from online order' method.

I've also kinda-sorta stumbled upon a compilation at that, Below Zero a gathering of a half-dozen tracks from other compilations Robert contributed to. Simple idea, but quite odd in execution, as this comes care of Lustmord's industrial print, Side Effects. The two had collaborated for the Stalker album, but Rich was mostly a Hearts Of Space kind of ambient composer, with little dabbling in the darker side of the genre. There must have been enough stray works out there for such a collection as this though, but releasing it on Side Effects, a label shutting its doors so shortly after? Was no one else willing to do the deed of scouring obscure ambient compilations for Robert Rich material?

Anyhow, Below Zero opens with Star Maker, a multi-part cosmic dark drone piece lasting over twenty minutes that traverses cosmic desolation before morphing into something a little less sinister. Feels like we're bearing witness to the birth of a solar system, or at least its primary life-giver. Eleven-minute follow-up Dissolving The Seeds Of A Moment (apparently never released before) goes for the atonal assault of dark drone, the sort of sound that's right up Lustmord's alley. A Flock Of Metal Creatures Fleeing The Onslaught Of Rust and Termite Epiphany mostly follow suite, though are shorter excursions, and even have moments of respite in their runtimes.

Then things take a turn for the ...benign? I wouldn't go so far as to say Liquid Air is all calm and soothing as traditional ambient can go, some of the pad layers still somewhat discordant. That gentle keyboard tone though, acting like a settling rudder for the ominous feels lurking about, does ease the frazzle mind-state some. And despite a rather melancholic mood, Requiem's voice pad timbre almost sounds like an exhale of pent-up emotional tension. Goodness, a 'journey' album, out of a compilation? Wonders never cease.