Moss Covered Technology - Sodium Light

Neotantra: 2021

Oh no! Another lovely little ambient album out of Neotantra, from an artist with a charming three-word alias I know nothing about but am now compelled to explore their Bandcamp page. When will my financial suffering end! *sigh* Let's do this then... Oh, he doesn't have that massive a discography after all. Still, some highly tempting items there. Quiet Loops, Southern Points, Speicherbank, Seafields, And His Many Seas... I'm sensing a theme here, one I'm totally digging. *deep sigh* *comical unzipping sound of digital wallet*

Moss Covered Technology is a relatively new artist, one Greig Baird, releasing the odd item every so often on a variety of labels (Dronarivm, hibernate, Polar Seas Recordings, Eilean Rec., Fluid Audio (2)). He had an earlier, minor run as Boomruin, fusing ambient and drone tones with downtempo beats, eventually making the transition over to more traditional beatless music and field recording manipulations. Seems that was Mr. Barid's true calling, as he's maintained that style ever since.

A running theme among many of Greig's albums under this moniker is using the same title for each track, though not necessarily the name of the album itself. The biggest diversion from this is found here on Sodium Light, each track rather titled Night. If you're wondering why, what do you think powers all those big spotlights in wide-open urban spaces like industrial parks and vehicle lots? There's other uses for them as well, but for the most part, when folks think of twilight hours in darkened city locales, the omnipresent soft glow from overhanging poles tends to spring to mind. Especially is you're the lonesome sort to wander about when contemplating post-clubbing existence and such. Ooh, I suspect there may be a bit of an ambient-Burial vibe going into this one.

Well, not quite. Night #1 is mostly languid synth tones supported by fuzzy analogue throbs, and over in a rather brief three minutes. Night #2 carries on the gentle ambience of soft, harmonic pads blanketed within the warm embrace of faint static. It certainly imparts the feeling of a metropolitan square utterly still, perhaps a stray insect hovering about a street lamp the only movement.

Even when Greig gets a little more 'aggro' and unsettling in his use of background hiss, there's always an accompanying serenity in what melodic tones pierce the murk. Unfortunately, we don't get to dwell on such ideas for long, Sodium Light only six tracks, lasting a mere thirty-five minutes total. I suppose it's effective in getting his musical ideas across without feeling the need to dawdle about, but man, what we do get is such a tease of something larger in scope. Can you blame me for wanting to raid his Bandcamp page for more items?

No, you cannot, which is what makes music exploration and discovery so much fun. Expensive, but fun! Hmm, speaking of, I noticed another intriguing print in my label name-drop above. What does this Polar Seas Recordings offer? Oh... oh no! *sigh* Here we go again... *unz-z-z-i-i-i-ip*...

Lucette Bourdin - Soaring Above The Thunder

Fantasy Enhancing: 2005/2021

I was afraid this would happen. Really, it's my fault, what with my arbitrary alphabetical queuing of albums. If I approached things normally, in chronological order, I'd hear Ms. Bourdin's natural progression as a musician over time. Instead, I've jumped all over the place, and as such have heard her muse in various states of evolution. I'll admit her general tone and style seemed to be mostly formed early on, material on Oceanic Spaces and Raven's Dream sounding almost as good as pieces from Breath Of Grace and her Nordic Waves series. And hey, maybe that would also be the case when I finally got around to her actual first album, Soaring Above The Thunder. There was always this niggling suspicion, however, that it would be more typical of a 'first album' from an artist. A little amateurish and rough around the edges, said artist still in their feeling-out process despite confident enough to release something out into the wider world.

And, well, that's basically what I hear with Soaring Above The Thunder. It's not bad or anything, indeed still competently performed ambient music. It just doesn't sound like Lucette had really explored her synths yet, relying on whatever was already available in their sound libraries, then playing them in a functional manner. It's the sort of music I'd probably perform if I was just starting out too.

What stands out most to me is how punctual her synths sound, particularly on pieces like Prelude, Cloud Drones, Metallic Skies and Return. If there's any definitive style I could place upon Ms. Bourdin, it's her subtle layering of pads and drones, such that her music has a graceful flow among its harmonic elements. Obviously this wasn't always the case, but whenever she was at her best, that was the attribute that stood out the most. On Soaring Above The Thunder though, such attributes are noticeably absent, lending her synth work to more of an old school '80s vibe, when layering synth pads was in a more primitive state (if even achievable at all).

Still, a couple pieces hint at roads where Lucette would soon explore with greater results. Winds Across The Fields is almost pure minimalist drone, even if some of the 'wind effects' come off a little clunky. Despite also being comparatively jagged, Sundrops (Interlude) does offer a gentleness heard in many pieces of her discography. Elsewhere, the titular track and Showers brings some rhythmic elements to Ms. Bourdin's repertoire, showing she wasn't just an 'all ambient, all the time' artist right out the gate.

So yeah, a bit of a disappointment this one, but like I said, I've only my own expectations to blame. Had I started this Retrospective Box Set (2005 – 2017) from here, rather than jumping all over the place, I'd probably have a better first impression of it. Then again, what if I'd discovered Lucette somewhere around her Ancient Memories period regardless, digging into her back catalogue from there? Would impressions have been the same?

John '00' Fleming - Progressive Euphoria (A 'Token Prog' Review)

Telstar TV: 2001

Bonus review – that time the biggest trance series in the land did an entire Token Prog Compilation! Yes, even the Euphoria series was not immune to the Great Prog Dominion of 2001, and so they set aside their usual roster of second tier Brit-jocks to recruit the ever-so-slightly more underground John 00 Fleming to teach the trance kids all about this new fangled progressive phenomenon. Of all the jocks we’ve featured, J00F is the only one still playing music in this vein, and not coincidentally he’s also the only one I could listen to in 2023 without wanting to shove a fork in my ear after 15 minutes. Positioning himself as the trance massive’s self-appointed gateway DJ to deeper sounds has paid career dividends for Worthing’s slightly pompous prodigal slaphead.

Seriously, get a load of these inlay notes! “If you are new to this scene, you have to listen to the music in a different way,” John mansplains, since “a lot of you may rarely go to an underground club”. This radical rewiring of your mind to accept dance music without a gigantic melody over the top of every tune is worth it in the end though, as “this music is more intelligent, and some of the complicated string arrangements have been compared to such all-time great composers as Mozart!” Sheesh. I also like how John promises to play you the versions that were “around on the underground scene way before their commercial release” and then promptly gaslights the listener by including the vocal mix of Cass & Slide’s Perception.

Jesting aside, this is really very good stuff from J00F. It has a few slightly more mainstream moments to build a bridge with the Gatecrasher kids (I’m looking at you, Storm and Jakatta), and because this is a Euphoria compilation it’s contractually bound to feature Matt Darey’s From Russia With Love in some form or other. But John also features some lesser known but top-notch prog tunes by the likes of Jay Welsh and Thomas Penton that came out on small labels and certainly weren’t big hits at the time, which shows he was doing his homework. CD1 is deeper and CD2 brings out the trancier end of the prog spectrum, prepping these kids for the time-honoured ways of the Global Undergrounds and Renaissance CDs they could move onto. Most didn’t, of course, but not for the want of J00F’s trying. This CD is an able rival to anything on those labels.

(Graphic design watch – as much teenage nostalgia as I derive from the iconic Euphoria logo, the overall sleeve is more “superclub supermarket CD” than gorgeous prog mimimalism. Bonus points though for making this the most grey and colourless cardboard sleeve in the entire series. If ever there was a visual metaphor for “put the glowsticks away”, you’re looking at it here.)

Cursory Second Disc Verdict: Not relevant here, for obvious reasons. Prog all the way home, and all the better for it.


[Sykonee Says: And that's a wrap on 'Token Prog'! Thanks to Jack for the fun little diversion from this blog's usual bollocks. Might there be more such mixes lurking out there for a revisit down the line? Or perhaps a whole new series where we force J' to review 'Token mnml' mixes from prog DJs, Clockwork Orange style? Oh c'mon, no one's that cruel.]

Armin van Buuren - 002 Basic Instinct (A 'Token Prog' Review)

United Recordings: 2001

And finally, Armin. It’s worth pointing out that in 2001, Armin was by far the least well known of these DJs. PVD, Oakey and Tiesto were all jostling in the Top 10 of the DJ Mag poll back when it had some connection to reality, and Ferry Corsten was sat at #19 despite being better known as a producer. Armin was a new entry on the list that year, and he still hadn’t had a mix CD released outside the Netherlands. Not until widespread broadband roll-out made Internet radio a big thing did his A State Of Trance show take him truly global.

Basic Instinct (which was kinda, sorta part of the ASOT series but before Armin had figured out how to brand it) was released in January 2001 and most of the tracks featured were released the previous year, and it shows. CD1 is prog alright, but it’s a much more banging big room strain of prog than the dark ‘n tribal stuff that would become so crushingly dominant just a few months later.

And y’know what? That’s very much a Good Thing, because the prog disc here is really good. The transitions are sometimes edited to make them a bit too abrupt for yer chin-stroking Global Underground connoisseur, but honestly I can’t fault how Armin put this together. The Argonaut’s Going Through is a perfect opener, low-key with a great sci-fi sample, and from there AVB builds quickly into some full-knacker peak time prog trance, featuring some of the finest trancey proggy cuts of the era from the likes of Lemon8, Starecase and Junkie XL.

And really, that’s the distinction. Like Oakey’s Another World, which I didn’t get to review, this CD is far better than the more dutiful 2001 Token Discs because it’s progressive trance rather than just progressive prog. It captures that shift where these guys sighed and said, “Okay fine, I’ll build up a set” in concession to prog scruples, but weren’t yet wanking around with tuneless tribal blah just to fit in. Funny how fast the club scene moved back then, that a mere twelve months could signify such a significant shift in sound.

Make no mistake, CD1 here would be CD2 on any of the Global Underground or Renaissance outings mixed by Seaman, Warren, Pappa and the like. It’s prog at its biggest and tranciest, but without ever falling into uplifting trance stoopidity. And honestly, if you’re going to buy a prog CD by Armin Van bloody Buuren, isn’t that what you’re after?

Cursory Second Disc Verdict: Not good. Not good at all. Cringey vocals, breakdowns longer than the Middle Ages and blaring Roland JP-8000 leads abound. It’s vaguely mindblowing that Armin can be so good on disc one and so bad on this disc.

What Did We Learn From All This? The general trend here is that the trancier these guys kept their “deep” disc, the better the results. Funny that. Improbably, it’s the Dutchmen Ferry and Armin who prog up best. If you want to hear the big trance boys at their least silly, their CDs are the place to go. Equally improbably, it’s Englishman Oakey who comes dead last, although he would have done a lot better had the Syko-lord allowed me to cover Another World again. Either way, the Great Prog Dominion fell off pretty swiftly after this, while trance got real bad almost as swiftly. For most of these guys, this was as respectable as they ever sounded. But hang around after the final credits, because there was one trance jock who jumped this bandwagon and never hopped back off…

Ferry Corsten / System F - Trance Nation 2001 (A 'Token Prog' Review)

Ministry Of Sound: 2001

[Sykonee Says: Shame the excellent Trance Nation America from Taylor and Jimmy Van M falls just outside the parameters of this series. Now there's a pair of CDs that deserves some recognition! Come to think of it, why haven't I plucked myself a proper copy of that by now? Time to get on it, methinks. Also, you can read Jack's thoughts on it direct on the Discogs page, if you're curious. Anyhow, onto the 'Token Prog']

Plot twist – it’s CD2! Yes, you didn’t expect the Trance Nation series to give up its first disc to any kind of halfway credible music, did ye? As a side-note, it’s kinda fascinating to go back to these CDs and contrast how the big trance jocks chose to market themselves. Oakenfold and Tiesto hammered the mix CD market hard, treating compilations the way bands treated albums. Meanwhile PVD avoided the format almost altogether, but released more actual albums than Plantpot and Ape Man combined, whereas Ferry was mostly happy to hitch a ride aboard one of the Ministry Of Sound’s most shamelessly commercial trance compilation series.

Accordingly, the Trance Nation outings were never really regarded as any kind of Serious Artistic Statement by Corsten – hell, I don’t think he ever primarily saw himself as a DJ anyway - so when he did come anywhere near a Token Prog Disc, it was more about The Ministry goading him with cattle prods into playing what was seen as commercially viable at the time.

(Also, y’know how I’ve been hyping up the graphic design of CDs from this period? Yeah… we need to talk about that. Trance Nation 2001 has one of the worst covers ever, pitched midway between health and safety signage, E-number-heavy fruit chew wrapper, and the carapace of some aggressively venomous insect. Even nostalgia can’t save this one.)

Because this is Trance Nation, the Token Prog Disc has to open with the most commercially successful prog tune ever, Touch Me, and because this is Trance Nation, it has to be pitched at +4%. The next track is the disc’s solitary concession to “tribal tech” seriousness, and then things get, well… really fun actually. As early as track three, Ferry’s dropping in some nasty warehouse-friendly acid lines courtesy of Lee Coombs, and shortly after he accelerates a pair of Bedrock productions and slams them together with the expert disdain of a Hollywood stunt driver.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s the odd bit of shite on here. Ferry’s own remix of Tony Walker is a load of cobblers, and I don’t care if Human Movement happens to be prog legend Marc Mitchell in disguise: Love Comes Again is still a horrendous slab of rotten cheddar and always has been. But of all the Token Prog Discs we’ve covered, this is by far the most boisterous and exciting, with cuts like the Trisco remix of Freet and Ferry’s own Needlejuice being the kind of jaw wobbling, face stroking, can-I-have-a-sip-of-your-water-mate bangers that rarely make it onto more high-minded Serious Artistic Statement prog mixes. The mixing also sounds just rough enough to be an actual turntable mix, which kinda adds to the whole “I just want to get out of here and cash my cheque” energy Ferry’s bringing. Two thumbs up.

Cursory First Disc Verdict: Completely terrible, but you already knew that. Cosmic Gate’s Firewire sitting side by side with novelty hard dance shit-hit How U Like Bass is one of humanity’s low points.

Paul van Dyk - The Politics Of Dancing (A 'Token Prog' Review)

Ministry Of Sound: 2001

[Sykonee Says: Wait a minute, I've already done a review of this one. Twice! Do we really need another? Well, considering the latter is a 'jokey' two-paragraphs long, and the former is a 4,000 word monstrosity that's so dry that it may as well be a 'Review Written In The Style Of Prog', maybe this deserves another kick at the can. Have at 'er, J'!]


Paul Van Dyk was rather anomalous amongst the big trance jocks in that he didn’t really do mix CDs. Indeed, The Politics Of Dancing was much-touted at the time as the first one he’d ever done, which means we’re supposedly to pretend his MFS showcase for X-Mix never happened. PVD upheld his part of that consensual hallucination by trying really hard to make TPOD stand out, out Sasha-ing Sasha by doing the whole “radically re-edit and remix everything” trick a few years before Involver. The inlay also contains a full page of cryptic gibberish where PVD artfully avoids explaining what “the politics of dancing” actually means. All very high concept.

While we’re at it, here’s another compilation sleeve that’s got all of that 2001 graphic design good stuff going on. Just pause for a moment and stare at a photo of that back cover with tracklist. It’s so beautifully clean it could be from the 1920s Bauhaus. Gotta appreciate Paul looking pensively monochrome in front of some limestone steps on the front too, like a politician holding a press conference to publicly apologise for sleeping with his secretary.

But nevermind that. We’re here to judge how well he jumped the bandwagon. This is an odd one, because everything is so extensively reworked (mainly by giving every tune the same kick/clap/bass combo PVD used on everything around this time) it sounds more like a PVD showcase than an overt Token Prog Disc. It starts out pretty good, with Ashtrax – Digital Reason being exactly the kind of atmospheric proggy trancer that these guys should have played more of. Even early on, the flow feels ultra-fiddly though, the studio’d-to-death nature of the mix stopping it from feeling like a real DJ set. Amazingly, this is the only place in the Token Prog Discs series we’ll hear IIO’s omnipresent Rapture, and I quite like the way PVD rebuilds it into a harder prog-acid stormer. Then there are more vocals. Lots more vocals.

Yeah, I dunno. This just doesn’t flow very well. A lot of stop-starting, a lot of breaks switching to 4/4 and back, and that damn PVD beat on nearly every single track. In the inlay, Van Dyk states that he doesn’t like doing studio mixes because he doesn’t have a crowd to vibe off, and it really shows here. By the time we get to his own Autumn, things are getting unapologetically trancey and there they’ll stay. I don’t know, I feel cheated. This is barely a bandwagon hop at all. Everything is kinda stripped down and proggy, but he’ll be winning absolutely no prog purist points for how naff a lot of this disc is. Another one of those 2001 hat tips to the zeitgeist that doesn’t really please either the trance tribes or the Bedrock hordes.

Cursory Second Disc Verdict: Paul’s having a lot more fun here, which means you will too. More bangers, less fluff: this is main room superclub trance done – mostly - very well.

DJ Tiësto - Revolution (A 'Token Prog' Review)

Virgin: 2001

Never heard of this one? Me neither, until I happened across it on Discogs. Tiesto already had a cottage industry of mix CDs to his name come 2001, with both his Magik and In Search Of Sunrise series in full flow, but most were only available in the UK on import and they were generally single-discers, which didn’t give much scope for including a Token Prog Disc. So Virgin Records cooked up Revolution to capitalise on his growing popularity in the UK market, including a full disc dedicated to that moody drummy stuff so beloved by the Britishers.

Now before we go on, I’d like to temporarily pause my pithy prog appraisal and point out just how much armour piercing nostalgia these 2001 CD sleeves give me. Look at that chunky sans-serif font type, the tasteful minimalist layout. Oh my God, the title even looks like a watermark. I’ve no doubt it’s because the design template is completely ripped off from Virgin’s Anthems series from the same era, which were some of the very first mix CDs I laid eyes on, but there’s something about the graphic design of this era that takes me right back.

Anyway. There’s something else we need to talk about here. It’s the mastering. Whoever mastered this CD fucked up biiiiig time, which is perhaps why it’s largely forgotten even amongst Tiesto’s fans. The whole thing is recorded in mono, seemingly from the bottom of a tin can, on the end of a bad phone line. On Mars. Which is a shame, because the Token Prog Disc here (titled Darkside) is actually pretty good. Not great, but very listenable.

Plantpot opens with his own remix of Delerium, because of course, and while the ultra-syrupy vocal stylings of Leigh Nash weren’t winning any prog cool points, the fact he cut this remix at 125bpm tells you which way the wind was blowing in clubland. And despite the “Darkside” moniker, CD1 is actually quite smooth early on, less about the pulverising tech trance of Lethal Industry or Flight 643 and more a grown up version of those cartoon magik pixies searching for their sunrises that made Tiesto his name, the likes of Golden Desert and Innocence being dreamy closing-credits trance that don’t make your eyes roll so violently that your sockets get friction burn.

Things start to pick up pace with Fred Numf’s remix of Lovin’, although you can tell it’s 2001 because Tiesto gets it out of the way before the big trancey bit really gets going. The second half is much more percussive and the bandwagon hop is finally in full flow. Things get progressively harder and less tuneful before climaxing with utter inevitability on the tribal drums and ethnic wailing of The Search. Just a shame the mastering takes most of the oomph out of these cuts.

Cursory Second Disc Verdict: Magik Seven on third hand cassette rip. Okay, the tracklist is slightly different, but another good reason why nobody remembers this compilation.

Various - Perfecto Presents... Paul Oakenfold: Ibiza (A 'Token Prog' Review)

Perfecto: 2001

First up to bat is the ape man himself, Lord Oakenfold. Oakey is a slight outlier on this series because he started the bandwagon hop earlier than his peers. Ever the savvy A&R man, he saw the way the wind was blowing a year before most in the trance scene, dabbling with a proggy first disc on both Perfecto Presents… Another World (only released in the US) and its sort-of sister Travelling (everywhere but the US) in 2000. Another World is easily the best of Oakey’s prog efforts, but the Sykonaut has already run the rule over that one, and my benevolent blog overlord demands a separate entry into the EMCritic archive. Gotta harvest those search engine clicks, y’all.

Instead I get to cover Perfecto Presents… Ibiza. It’s now 2001, and boy are we going full prog here. Another World and Travelling both had Token Prog Discs, but they were very much progressive trance. This, on the other hand, is prog at its most 2001. Prog as in “progressive nothing”. The big echoey tribal drums, pulsing basslines and resolute lack of melodic top end are all present and correct. But how well does the ape man ape the prog men?

Honestly, CD1 starts so hilariously over-proggy it’s almost parodic. The first track is eleven and a half minutes long, fer chrissake! It’s like Oakey is deliberately setting out to alienate his trance kiddy fanbase. By the time we reach the fourth tune (and I use the word in the loosest possible sense) things have become so soporific my mind had wandered to why Oakenfold decided to style this disc after Ibiza, given the totalitarian greyness of the music is more evocative of Watford on a damp Wednesday than the White Isle. And just when you thought things couldn’t get any less cheerful, in come Radiohead with Idioteque. Oh my.

Yes, it seems as well as the prog bandwagon jump, this compilation catches Oakenfold at the start of his attempted Serious Artist phase, with Radiohead, Depeche Mode, U2 and The Prodigy trying to mix up the club tunes with Proper Songs. We’re really getting peak pretentious Oakenfold here, on both discs. The middle of CD1 also tips its hat to 2001’s other big fad: “nu skool” breaks, which really doesn’t help lift the energy levels any. Finally some drive is injected by Arena – Transit, before Oakenfold loses interest in that tack and ends the disc with Narayan, which would have had more impact had Fat Of The Land not been rinsed to death by 2001.

We’re off to a good start here. And by good, I mean bad. This is really rubbish, whether you’re a glowstick brandisher or a prog purist. Maximum prog points, minimum enjoyment.

Cursory Second Disc Verdict: Honestly, still pretty proggy. Right up until it’s not. The fact PPK – ResuRection exists in the same region of the observable universe as CD1, never mind the same jewel case, is testament to the remarkable variety of the human condition.

Jack Moss Presents: The Token Prog Discs

No blog post or ACE TRACKS playlist from me this time. Instead, my old writing partner Jack Moss came to me with the offer of an interesting concept that I couldn't refuse. I'll let him summarize from here...


Remember 2001? Nokia 3310s, PlayStation 2s, nary a superhero movie in sight and the last lingering hangover of relative sanity from the 1990s before freedom fries, global recessions and the general vortex of ever-accelerating doom we’ve been spiralling down ever since. Looking back, it feels like a year stuck in a holding pattern from the previous decade, not quite sure where we were going with this new millennium shit yet, and the same was true if you were a clubber. Electroclash was just starting to emerge from New York, Fabric released its very first mix CD and nu skool breaks was some sort of thing, but generally the scene was stuck in the same superclub mode that had dominated the ’98-2000 boom years.

And in the middle of all this, there was prog. A whole lotta prog. For whatever reason, prog reached its all time ascendance in this period. You couldn’t swing a cat in a record store without hitting a B-side prog remix, and the genre even achieved its one, and probably only, chart topping UK single with Rui Da Silva’s Touch Me. And whereas progressive house in its original early ‘90s incarnation had been a varied, playful thing full of sounds and steals from anything the ponytailed producers could shove into their primitive samplers, the second wave of prog was as proggily prog-prog as you could imagine, all moody basslines, heavy downpours of percussion and absolutely as little melody as possible.

But something fun did emerge from this unlikely dominion: the spectacle of DJs from over in glowstick trance land feeling the urge to jump aboard the bandwagon. And so for a year or so, it became obligatory for all the biggest trance DJs to devote disc one of their latest mix compilation to some dutiful prog dabbling before whipping out the supersaws on disc two.

And you know what? Unlike the decade’s later bandwagon hops of farty electro basslines appearing in absolutely everything everywhere, and Brit DJs pretending they liked minimal techno, there were some surprisingly good results from the cheesemonger DJs deliberately reigning in their flamboyant tendencies. It turns out some of these guys could play pretty well when they weren’t shovelling as many two minute breakdowns into a set as the Godskitchen laser array could handle. And with their natural trance tendencies always peeking through, some of them managed to be more entertaining than the actual prog DJs in this period. (Seriously, you try whistling anything on Digweed’s Los Angeles Global Underground).

So now, with 2001 a frankly terrifying twenty two years ago and counting, we’ll be journeying back through time to see which of the Big Five trance boys (Oakenfold, Tiesto, Armin, PVD and Ferry) hopped that bandwagon best! The rules are simple: the prog discs will be ranked according to their prog credentials, and we’ll poke our head briefly into the main room to scope CD2. So without further ado, join me for a deep dive into…

The Token Prog Discs.

Stormloop - Snowbound*

Glacial Movements Records: 2011

Yet another artist I've long meant to return to, and simply neglected for... gosh, half a decade now? There's a silly reason for this, in that when I picked up his Into The Void album, I thought I was diving into an artist with an impeccable work rate, his prior decade seeing the release of some twenty LPs worth of music. Now appearing on ..txt, it looked as though Stormloop was ready to launch his career ever higher. And there would be I, having his Bandcamp page bookmarked, getting all those early alerts that another session of lush ambient tones was about to drop. Only... it didn't.

Not that Kev Spence went totally dark after Into The Void, still releasing the odd item here and there. Just compared to his output prior, it's quite the drop-off. I'm sure there's any number of reasons for this – real world events conflicting, goals mostly accomplished, etc. - but yeah, when an artist slips from your recollection, so too does returning to their discography for another dive.

Fortunately, I was reminded of him when I started my splurge on Glacial Movements Records. Come to think of it, Stormloop was technically my introduction to the label, name-dropping them in my review of Into The Void. Didn't really make a connection then, and wouldn't for another couple years, until covering Skare's Grader. Funny how that works out. Anyhow, Glacial Movements offers bulk CD buys, so when I finally took the plunge, I was quite happy to see Stormloop's Snowbound* still among the options. Physical medium is already plenty rare in Kev's catalogue, and the fact such an old item (over a decade now!) was there for the taking, well, how can you beat that?

Just in case you weren't clear about the sort of album you're in for, the titular opener very gradually eases you into a wintry clime'. It almost feels like you're awakening from some long, restless slumber, unsure of your surroundings, biting cold piercing your flesh as you huddle yourself, gathering your bearings. The synth drone is ominous, yet somehow awe inspiring too, as though you know full well you're in an inhospitable realm that contains its own unique beauty. All the while, a steady electronic pulse carries you along, the sort of minimalist tone that will instantly get your Biosphere triggers flaring.

The desolate dark drone doesn't let up for the rest of the album. Tracks with titles like Cold Winds, A Blizzard, Dense Fog, and Losing Sleep should tell you the sort of album you're in for. We even seem to get space bound by the end, even though the foreboding tone doesn't offer much respite. There are moments of reflective tranquility (Space Station J), but once again, Glacial Movements has drawn some of the most isolationist ambient out of its contributing artists. Now excuse me while I wrap myself in more blankets. It cold here in Vancouver!