Afgin - Eternal Freedom

Suntrip Records: 2021

Speaking of artists who dropped an album during Suntrip's formative era, then seemingly disappeared for a decade after, here's Afgin again. True, he emerged at the tail-end of that first wave, but releasing Astral Experience around the same time Filteria and E-Mantra were releasing records ain't nothing to sneeze at. Merr0w too, I guess, Born Underwater's mermaid forever etched into the annals of unique Suntrip covers. (don't know anything about Radical Distortion's Psychedelic Dreams - the 'P's are still a long ways down in my current queue).

Okay, comparing Afgin to Khetzal is silly, and it's not like Elad was as quiet as Matthieu throughout the 2010s. True, Emotional Peaks was quite the departure from neo-goa, instead getting its toes wet with regular ol' progressive trance, what with the breakdowns and diddly piano bits and basslines that have actual chord progressions, not just key changes. Look, I like you, goa trance, I really do, but man, you could use more dynamism in your low-ends, even just once. I mean, it works for the prog-psy guys, so why not you?

Anyhow, whether Emotional Peaks was intended as a deliberate appeal to the Trance Family that failed, or just a passing fancy on Afgin's part, it cannot be denied that it curtailed whatever production momentum he had entering the '10s. He pretty much spent the rest of the decade on the DJ circuit, which is where he probably would have stayed had a pesky little pandemic not interrupted the clubbing sector something fierce. Can't tour festivals for a spell? Welp, may as well hunker down in a studio and crank out a few tunes, see where the inspiration takes you, and wouldn't you know it, there's a whole album's worth here. Maybe give the Suntrip lads a call, whether they're interested in some more material.

Right, I'm just forming conjecture based on little more than what Lord Discogs tells me. Still, it's funny how all these seemingly dormant neo-goa artists suddenly re-emerged at the turn of the '20s.

That all said, is Afgin's Eternal Freedom any good? Well, I like it better than his Astral Experience, if that helps. Not that I felt his first Suntrip CD was bad or anything, but it didn't really leap out at me as anything more than an Astral Projection nod, fairly standard fare as far as retro-goa acts were concerned. This one has that too, with plenty of acid to spare, but holy cow, th'ar be basslines here! It's like Elad's taken the best elements of his progressive trance tunes, and fused them with your regular wiggly, squiggly, ultra-punchy psychedelic Suntrip stylee. Chord progressions, oh so sweet chord progressions!

Okay, it's not in every track, acid-drenched goa still the dominant strain of trance we're hearing here. Still, if you don't mind a little of the classic progressive in your diet, final track Reaching Sunrise is a tasty morsel to end on, plucky synth breakdown and all. Reach for those lasers, crusties!

Khetzal - Etamines

Suntrip Records: 2021

Mr. Chamoux's debut wasn't just hailed as an instant classic for the psy scene at large, but a defining statement for a new breed of vintage goa trance, cementing Suntrip Records' status as the label if you wanted more. So, y'know, absolutely no pressure at all in providing a follow-up. Fans eagerly waited, and waited, and waited, and... Y'know what, mates? I think he ain't gonna' do it. What's he doing, pulling a Burial on all of us? Well, even the post-dubstep artist released enough EP material following Untrue for a double-LP once consolidated. All Matthieu managed following Corolle were sporadic compilation tracks, keeping the name out there, while dashing expectations in the process. Keep 'em hungry, but not anticipating.

Then, kinda' out of the blue during the Lockdown Years, here's Etamines, a sophomore effort sixteen years in the making. Okay, not that long, but officially the time between it and Corolle. For perspective, the birth of goa trance to his debut is a shorter gap than both Khetzal albums. What's even funnier is the genre had gone through so many variations up to 2005 that tracks on Corolle were considered retro, whereas on Etamines, general consensus is “yep, it's more neo-goa”.

Which had to be expected, right? Like, it's pretty rare any artist gets to define a new micro-genre, much less do it again (Aphex Twin aside). I doubt folks expected Khetzal would create another nu-retro strain of psy, but where exactly could he go that still sounded fresher than his contemporaries when hailed as The Next Great Hope was never part of the exercise? As said, the Burial Problem.

The fascinating thing about Corolle is when you get down to it, the album was still very much a product of its time. Yeah, there was some blistering ol' school goa trance on there the likes that hadn't been heard for an age, but it was book-ended by prog psy tunes that wouldn't have sounded out of place on an Ultimae collection back when. That diversity is what gave it such lasting appeal. Etamines, on the other hand, does that typical Suntrip Records thing of hitting things hard right out the gate, maybe upping the tempo a little as things move along, but mostly just giving slight variations on the same basic formula front to back.

Only Didge Voices breaks things up some, a second-to-last track that slows the tempo a little to prog-psy levels over the brisk goa before. Everywhere else, there's acid, there's ethnic melodies, there's squiggly synths and soaring climaxes. As I said, standard Suntrip stuff, just a little heavier on the vintage goa.

Still, I can't say this was a disappointment. It's not like I was personally waiting sixteen years for this to come out or anything. Given the bulk of releases I've heard from this label thus far, it's certainly in the upper tier. However, it also highlights just how special Corolle was when it dropped, and remains to this day.

Sykonee's 'Sportsing' Surveys: BOOM BOOM SATELLITES

While going through Tipper's discography, someone on Mastodon mentioned this group as a similar sounding act when it came to complex, nu-skool breaks production. I was shocked in not knowing of them, having been subjected to a lot of nu-skool back when it was so cool. Yet here was a duo that had been around since the genre's heyday, going strong for well over a decade, even getting their start on famed techno label R & S Records. They'd rubbed shoulders with D'n'B luminaries like Optical and Klute, been playlisted by the likes of Carl Cox and Ken Ishii, and apparently even toured with Moby for a spell. Not to mention getting soundtracked on a few anime and video games. Ah, hmm, maybe that's the issue there.

Despite breaking out in a decidedly European rave scene, and even adopting some American industrial rock aesthetics, they couldn't shake their inherent Japanese style, and were forever doomed to only remain big in their home country – a grammatically confounding name likely didn't help. Perhaps that was all they ever needed for a satisfying career, but that shouldn't relegate them to global obscurity. Even sadder, they had to prematurely cut whatever promise they had when band member Michiyuki Kawashima died from brain tumours.

For my own curiosity's sake, then, I needed to hear more from them. Might there be a culture barrier to overcome, as with some of the other Japanese material I've covered here? Possibly, probably, but I won't know until I dive in, will I?










As an addendum, there was something interesting I noticed from my streams off Deezer. Every time I finished listening to an album, tracks from that record would then feature on the band's Top Tracks list. That leads me to believe one of two things: either Boom Boom Satellite's popularity has fallen off so bad that my streaming of them was the only plays they received, or no one in Japan knows what Deezer is. Probably the latter, the streaming service more a European one, and lacking the global clout a Spotify or Apple Music has earned (or does Japan have their own major music app? Wouldn't surprise me).

Still, I can't help but wonder if this group truly are now destined to utterly disappear abroad. For sure they'll retain some fanbase in their homeland, but hopes of a new audience re-discovering them is unfortunately likely to diminish as time wears on. Whatever mark they made upon the turn of the century breaks scene seems mostly forgotten now, and the rock world certainly paid them little heed. I do think they deserve some attention for their production chops, but whether they'll click for you is likely entirely up to a listener's preferences.

Rest Well, Papa (an eulogy)

So my grandfather died.

This wasn't unexpected, being 97 years old and all. Indeed, the writing was on the wall at least half a decade ago, when he was diagnosed with degenerative kidney failure. Basically told one day, they would simply stop working, and that would be that. More than enough time to 'prepare' for the inevitable, and even had a couple extra years when he was given over to hospice care. I'm not terribly saddened by this outcome, having said all I felt needed to be said to him well before. I honestly felt more of a 'gut-punch' when news came down that Tony Schnur (Thick44) of the Neebs Gaming crew was taken by brain cancer than when I finally got 'The Call' about the state of my Papa's final breath. One doesn't feel as much loss when you know the person who's passed lived about as full and rich a life as anyone could hope for.

Could I have gone visit him more often than I did before the end? Probably, though you can't really blame me for not. The one time I did, he was having something of a delusion, thinking he was Babe Ruth needing to get to Wrigley Field in Chicago. I humoured him some, even got the nurses on hand to let me wheel him around the block for a bit before he got so angry at me for not getting him to the “fucking airport”, he essentially shut down in a huff. So I caught him on a 'bad day', just unfortunate luck of the draw. Still, I cannot deny it left me shook, realizing I couldn't bare to see him like that again. I'd see him in a more placid state at some family gatherings, but one-on-one? That was it. (side note: the day I did see him having his episode was October 1, 2022, exactly 90 years after Babe Ruth did his famous Called Shot at Wrigley Field – talk about coincidences!)

Some time passed, then I had a... hunch? Intuition? Pent-up guilt? Whatever it was, I felt I should go see him, even if he was doing nothing but resting in the hospice. Sure enough, he was in a deep sleep, perhaps stirring a little as I talked with his wife (my step-grandma) and daughter (married in). We tried to wake him, but he was out like a light. I sensed he was in some lucid dream state, able to hear us but other images playing out in his remaining memories. Before we left, I gave him a single, gentle touch to his head, telling him to rest well. Two days later he was gone.

So why bring all this up on a blog dedicated to covering (mostly) electronic music? Well, this is a blog, right, as in, a platform to share personal thoughts? That was the intent of these platforms, before folks started monetizing it. More than that though, I feel I owe it to Papa, to use this platform to share some thoughts about him, for truth of the matter is, without him, I may not even be where I am today.

Many, many moons ago, I was at bottom's end, having tried to make a new life work and miserably failing in the process. I saw only four options ahead of me: stick things out in the dire straights I was, go back to my hometown with my tail between my legs (another dead-end as far as I was concerned), give my grandpa a call and see if I could try my luck in the Lower Mainland, or join the army. I went with option number three. The timing was perfect for him, as he needed someone to house-sit while they went on a two month vacation. He said I could stay rent-free for those two months, after which I needed to be working and able to earn my keep while I rebuilt my life. I had a job within two days, and here I am today, all the better for it. Maybe I eventually would have gotten my shit together some other way, but at the time, he gave me the lifeline I needed when I had no other.

So, with nothing more than some personals in a back-pack and a garbage bag full of clothes, I took the Greyhound bus to Vancouver. Funnily, hilariously, kinda' stupidly, I missed my transfer in Chilliwack (one of the Fraser Valley stops), and was stranded. I had to call Papa to come 'rescue me' at the bus depot. I have no idea how he knew where to find the Greyhound station, but after nearly an hour of waiting, he picked me up. Talk about your auspicious starts to a 'new beginning'. And it wasn't the last time he'd be there to help me 'start anew' when I had no one else to turn to.

When I look back though, he was always there to help give me little 'boosts' in growing up. He taught me to play Cribbage at a young age, giving me quite the advantage over my classmates in the multiple ways to add up to fifteen and thirty-one. He got me to appreciate classical music, learning how to let one's imagination do the storytelling as I played back some of his 8-track tapes. Heck, my habit of using the CBC Radio as my morning alarm was likely instilled from memories of him waking up early morning, listening to CBC Radio while prepping his coffee and toast. I just assumed that's what you did as you matured.

In the end though, there was one particular life lesson I received from him early on, perhaps the greatest that's stuck with me since I was a wee chile'. It's perfectly fine to be content with your surroundings and your life, no shame in that. Yet sometimes calamity can befall you at any given time, irrevocably changing things you could never have anticipated or prepared for. This doesn't have to be a tragedy though, indeed maybe a change that results in something better, to grow from, with new possibilities before you. He told me this life lesson in the form of a nursery rhyme:


A peanut sat on a railroad track
Waiting for its supper
Along came a choo-choo train...
*choo-choo*
Peanut butter

Various - Epoch Of The Terrans (The Best Of Neogoa)

Suntrip Records: 2014

Driving the point home that Suntrip was onto something in 2010, another neo-goa label launched, called Neogoa. Oh my, can this micro-scene be robust enough to support two prints promoting the stuff? Well, maybe not anymore, as I can't say many of their roster sparks any recollection on my part. Not that Suntrip was filled with highly recognizable names before I jumped in there either, but I knew a few (E-Mantra, Khetzal, Ra). And while Suntrip held strong, it looks as though Neogoa didn't quite survive the Pandemic Era, Lunar Dawn's The Purge their lone release in the last four years.

But hey, for a time, this new wave of retro psy was getting all the attention, and Neogoa carved out their little niche on the always awesome Ektoplazm. It was enough that a few years into their run, Papa Suntrip came along saying, “We like the cut of your chai, kid. Interested in a little cross-promotion, give your artists extra shine off our back?” Thus we got Epoch Of The Terrans (The Best Of Neogoa). Yet cheekily, Suntrip released their own 3-CD ten year anniversary extravaganza Ten Spins Around The Sun that same year. That's some mighty fine struttin' there, Lou.

The first two cuts off here are from artists that would make the jump from Neogoa to Suntrip: Crossing Mind and Morphic Resonance. If you recall, I wasn't too enthused about C.M.'s album Beyond Duality, feeling it held back by rhythms sounding a tad plastic compared to what I expect out of Suntrip material, and it holds true for this Virtual Mind Cleaner, the same aesthetic ever present, and just not grabbing me. M.R., on the other hand, had a fairly kick-ass debut on Suntrip with The City Of Moons, and his offering of Chromatic World here is... Okay, it's an earlier tune, probably still finding his footing, and all that good stuff. It's a solid slice of psy and acid, f'sure, but just not as solid as his debut.

Astrancer is also here, his Tetragammaton getting on the squiggly vintage space goa vibes. Somnesia's another name that appears on both this and Energy Waves, but only in collaboration, and with different partners in each. I will give this pairing with Arronax though: their Black Hole (Revisited) definitely hits the Suntrip style of modern goa proper hard, which is more than can be said for the other artists featured on this comp'.

Yeah, I just can't ignore it, but these tracks from Lunar Dawn, BlackStarrFinale and GoaTree all carry that same plastic sheen as Crossing Mind, the sort of production I more associate with full-on psy than Suntrip's standards. Supposedly the label gave these Neogoa stars some extra beef, but as when they bring old, dusty, unreleased '90s trance to the modern ear, there's only so much that can be done with the source material. Epoch Of The Terrans was an interesting look-see into what other branches of this micro-scene was up to, but hasn't really compelled me to dig further.

Various - Energy Waves

Suntrip Records: 2010

Brace yourself, more goa trance is coming. No, I mean, all at once, in a row. As alphabetical organization has decreed, I now have a run of four Suntrip CDs ahead of me. And even after getting through this mini-block, I still won't be done with the label among my 'E' albums! Heck, I nearly had another one included in this bundle, Morphic Resonance's Extrasensory Perception coming out mere months after I splurged. Psy trance peeps just really love the letter 'E', I guess.

On one hand, hey, swell beans, knocking off a bunch of these in one fell swoop. That'll help getting through this catalogue a bit quicker, right? Then I look at what I still have sitting in my CD rack, just the barest of dents made. I swear, Suntrip's discography didn't look this big when browsing it on Bandcamp. Who knew over seventy CDs was actually a large amount! Maybe should have settled on one of their smaller packs, like the thirteen CD 'Darker & Acidic Goa Sound' one, or the nineteen 'Suntrip Classics', or the twenty-one 'Melodic Overdose Extended'. Bare minimum, the thirteen 'Compilations' bundle, to at least get a feel for the label before going whole hog on it.

Like, if I'd nabbed Energy Waves first, it would have been an easy sell after. Yeah, the title and cover art is kinda' corny in that too-retro goa trance way, but it's hard faulting the music within. Suntrip itself had firmly found its footing by this point, emerging acts like Filteria and E-Mantra rubbing shoulders with established vets like Ra and Dimension 5, and a whole burgeoning micro-scene with up and coming talent chomping at the bit to make their mark among all the cyber-crusties.

Like that Mindsphere chap that opens the comp'. He'd been around already, but would soon become a fixture within the Suntrip camps. Right, The Awakening is more of a prog-psy outing, but gotta' start things off on a slower beat before unleashing the blistering 140+ BPM. E-Mantra's here too, giving a rub on Khetzal's Indian Attic, while Ra's Time Current provides another other of their smooth, no squiggly fuss psy tunes. That's about it for the heavy hitters, the remaining tracks featuring relatively new cats, at least at the time. This CD's almost fifteen years old now, at least a couple of them went on to make proper albums since.

Such as Antares, who's Eureka breaks the ten-minute mark of unrelenting, ever-building goa vibes – essentially the de facto Suntrip stylee, come to think of it. Meanwhile, Astrancer gets two tracks, Athanaton going a bit deeper compared to the flying-high Inhabitants Of The Sun. Getting this much shine on a nine-track collection, you'd think he was a sure-shot of future success, but instead mostly stuck things out on compilation market after. Huh, who'd have predicted that? Then again, Khetzal was tapped for Future Star status, and look how long he took for a follow-up to Corolle.

Michael Stearns - Encounter (A Journey In The Key Of Space)

Hearts Of Space: 1988

It's not that Mr. Stearns is some unknown entity among the early ambient and modern classical composers. Chap had a well-regarded discography even before truly breaking out with his work on the visual documentary film Baraka. It's just that there were always other artists within his sphere that seemed to get more of the limelight. Your Kevin Brahenys. Your Steve Roachs. Even your Craig Huxleys, to a degree. Heck, despite providing the bulk of music for Baraka, folks almost entirely remember it for the inclusion of Dead Can Dance's The Host Of The Seraphim over any of Michael's particular works. I can't help knocking the sense that Mr. Stearns is always the bridesmaid, never the bride when it comes to those all-important namedrop sessions. Hell, it's taken me this long to get around to any of his albums!

It probably didn't help that for the first decade of his solo career, he was self-releasing his albums on his own Continuum Montage print. Difficult enough getting much press as an indie in the '80s, much less in the still ultra-niche scene of ambient music. Things finally took a turn when he signed with established label Hearts Of Space, from which he debuted with this little item of Encounter (A Journey In The Key Of Space). Now a wider audience could hear all the sonic richness his multi-instrument studio could bring!

Okay, pump the breaks a little there, Syk', we're still dealing with an '80s album. Though Michael gets some solid use out of synth pads, choir pads, and atonal drone, there are moments where the chintzy sounds associated with the decade appear too. On The Way – Space Caravan features spritely keyboards and flat percussion that can't help but sound way dated, while the woodwinds in Alien Shore – Starlight Bay come off quite out of place among all the sci-fi aesthetics. On the other hand, a repeated leitmotif of ominous, mysterious flutes as heard in Craft – Dimensional Release and Distant Thunder – Solitary Witness wonderfully latches onto your brain matter, convincing you you're listening to something of a narrative, Encounter a film score to a TV or Direct-To-VHS movie that never got made.

It such thematic consistency that gives Mr. Stearns a chance to go rather dark and droning in several places throughout this album. Seriously, the early portions of Craft's desolate halls, or the disquieting emptiness of Dimensional Shift – Across The Threshold that follows a cacophonous eruption of synths, all the sort of sonic tricks I'd expect out of a typical Cryo Chamber session.

Still, this is a Hearts Of Space release, so Encounter goes more Contact than Fire In The Sky with its alien explorations. Most pieces are content letting the tranquil beauty of outer space and higher consciousness sweep over you in that grey area where ambient ends and New Age begins. Just nice of Michael to remind us that getting there can be a bit of a scary excursion of sensory overload too.

John Shima - The Empty Lands

FireScope: 2022

Seems the label B12 built has gone relatively quiet as of late. This album from Mr. Shima came out some eighteen months ago, and FireScope has only seen two more items released since. The ambient leaning Origins from Kirk Degiorgio was the lone record out from the print in 2023, itself a year ago, to say nothing of drawing a blank for this year thus far. While it feels premature assuming Steven Rutter had to scuttle FireScope or something, it can't help but seem like the label's best days are behind it, their brand of retro-future IDM and vintage, bleepy ambient techno having enjoyed its mini-revival, now done and dusted. Maybe it'll see another flurry of action again, but if not, t'was a solid run of six years.

If FireScope is truly mothballed, it feels appropriate John Shima would have one of the label's final releases. His Elements Unknown single was the first to break from the initial B12 run, even introducing the sci-fi style of cover art that was as much a part of the print's aesthetic as anything musical. I'm always for symmetry in my narratives, and even if this is mere coincidence, it's nifty seeing the FireScope saga end similarly to how it began.

Actually, listening to The Empty Lands, I kinda' hear why the label's fortunes may have diminished some. Don't get me wrong, this is still music I generally enjoy, but it cannot be denied Mr. Rutter cultivated a very specific style to his print - techno that sounds like vintage B12, for the most part. That's cool and all for a while, but when there hasn't been much evolution from that, it can grow rather samey-sounding. Save for die-hard collectors and completists, incentive to keep splurging on records lessens when it seems like you're just buying the same thing again and again.

If I were to take any of Mr. Shima's tracks from The Empty Lands and replace them with something from Elements Unknown or The Lonely Machine, would you be able to tell the difference? At their core, the sounds in play are mostly the same: crisp electro rhythms, smooth sci-fi pads, melancholic melodic leads conjuring vistas of metropolis inhabited by machinery and automatons. John's shown he can go other ways with techno on recent EP's like Tokyo Nights or CPU Modular 1. This is just the FireScope stylee, and you're gonna' get more of it.

And I'm fine with that, really I am. I like the FireScope stylee, and if this truly is about the last of it we'll get to hear, I may as well enjoy it while it's there. Kemx and Desolate have fun little echoing synths that sounds like robots singing. Depart, Desolate, and Mettle are surprisingly chipper compared to how moody the rest of The Empty Lands goes. Sayaka provides the obligatory reflective tune. All solid stuff, just stuff I've heard before, and doing little to distinguish from the rest of FireScope's catalogue. Seems a common refrain from me, lately.

Natural Life Essence - Emerged Garden

Liquid Frog Records: 2017

And back again with Mr. Giacovino. It can't help but feel a little start-stop with my current queue, doesn't it. I'll go on a mini-run of covering something outside the usual releases from N:L:E or Suntrip Records, maybe even a box-set or entirely different discography for a spell, then we're right back with the Big Two within this alphabetical run. And no matter how many additional CDs or Bandcamp releases I've added since to spice things up, here we are again, always. I guess it technically has been over a month since I last talked up anything from the Liquid Frog files, but that's more due to needing a small sabbatical a couple weeks back because... well, I'll touch upon that at a more appropriate time.

I know this makes it sound like I've grown bored by all the ambient dub or goa trance, but only from a writing perspective. Coming into each release with a unique angle is what makes this blog stand out from all the generic, A.I. driven music coverage currently flooding the interwebs (I hope!), and that gets challenging when one feels every possible angle has been covered in previous reviews. Yeah, there's the dry particulars for each item, but damn if I'm gonna' let the algorithms trawl my prose for their use without a fight. At the very least, I hope I give Gemini an alliterative aneurysm the same way Captain Kirk kills computers with logic circles.

Anyhow, let's talk up Natural Life Essence again. Emerged Garden, erm, emerged early in Juan Pablo's music career, about the point things really started ramping up for him. Not quite at the point where he adopted an acronym for the project's name, but early enough such that he was still in a feeling-out process of what the music could entail.

This is quite apparent in the opening twenty-one minute long track Echolocation, which plays about with a lot of field recordings and sample manipulations that's more reminiscent of early Orb dub jams at their noodliest. Yes, even some of the 'stoner humour', what with included bong bubbling and gurgling noises, though no quirky dialog added. The rhythm is about what I've come to expect out of N:L:E's forays into ambient dub, but again, early days, still finding that rhythm.

I honestly find the two pure ambient pieces on this four-tracker the most interesting of the lot. They send me to such a tranquil headspace, it's hard disliking them on a vibes level. Polinization also runs some twenty-plus minutes, but captures being out in a blissy garden full of sun rays and gentle winds so wonderfully, it comes quite the shocker when the pads simply cut out midway through. Like waking up from a near-complete doze, maybe from some unwelcome insect landing on your forehead. Ah well, it's gone now, back to swaying in a hammock. And now you're getting into some lucid dreamspace in closer Liberation (Flying Free). Napping never felt so needed.

Tierro Cosmico - Figments Of Wonder

Neotantra: 2022

Thus we conclude Ember Delays, Vol. 1 with another artist utterly unknown to Lord Discogs' tomes. Fortunately, Bandcamp has a smidge more info regarding them, an actual Bandcamp page not only including this album, but a new one released just this month as well (Botanical Mood). Talk about timing, eh? And yes, this is a very appropriate use of 'eh', in that Tierro Cosmico is a fellow Canadian – Toronto, in this case, but hey, Neotantra has proven nothing if not be a complete global presence. Best I can gather, a few of the tracks on this debut appeared on some tʌntrə compilations, and after letting Figments Of Wonder generate whatever buzz it could on Tierro Cosmico's own Bandcamp, was given the Neotantra bump later that year. Well, about as much of a bump appearing on an ultra-niche ambient techno label can give you these days.

We've heard a variety of ambient from the four other albums included in Ember Delays, but I can't say the same with the fifth. It has unique characteristics for sure, even if it's treading some similar territory as heard on Melancholic Gardens, Emotional Axes, and Geirþjófsfjörður, in this case ample use of field recordings and minimalist synth drones. What makes these elements stand out over the other offerings is how prominent the naturalist sounds are compared to the musical one. It mostly reminds me of Andrew Heath, though less abstract in construction, each piece played out in simple, similar fashion. And there are a lot of them, sixteen tracks total, each averaging between three to five minutes. Sweet, more music to enjoy, right? Eh, not so much, if I'm honest.

The issue isn't that what's presented is bad or trite or anything like that, each track perfectly pleasant little bite-sized morsels of tranquil ambience in a variety of coloured sprinkles. When they're this bite-sized, however, little has a chance to sink in, each piece drifting by like samplers before moving onto the next. Imagine being served numerous platters of appetizers, each small variations of similar taste, thus none really standing out from the others as part of a meal. Like, maybe I wanted to indulge in more of the New Age vibes of Somnium or Waxing Gibbous. Or the bell tones of Bardo Thodol or Dreaming Of Triptolemus. Or the layered drones of Easing Waters or La Nieve. Or the synthier explorations of Exodus or Leaving Aeterna. Or nighttime bliss of Hidden Harmony or La Nieve. Nope, once you're getting warmed up to any of these tracks, we're moving onto the next, each thematically consistent with the album's general tone, but stylistically different enough such that the previous piece is lost in your memory.

These nitpicks leaves Figments Of Wonder at the bottom of my hypothetical ranking of Ember Delays albums, but it's not like there's huge separation from the top. Each CD was enjoyable to some degree, just some more than others, a purely subjective conclusion based on what I like out of my ambient music.