Track of the week

Track of the Week

A maybe little less known Solar Field track, but by no means any worse!

Krusseldorf - From Soil to Space

1. Geometrics

2. Boxing

3. The Cell

4. First Blood

5. From Soil to Space

6. Click

7. Deep Fulgin

8. Tokyo Nights

9. Soe Doe

10. Deep into the Bowl

11. Choclop

12. Zyclops

13. A head under the Towel

After having reviewed Krusseldorf's second album, 'Bohemian groove', I was certain that this was the pinnacle of Simon Heath's career, he could never release an album that would top it. This was the perfect album, there were no flaws, no bad tracks, no mistakes, everything was meshed into something extraordinary. This album was Simon's fifteen minutes of fame, I told myself, and to be honest, how do you top something perfect? Well you can't really top it but you obviously can do it again! And perfect a second time around, is surely good enough for me.

The first thing you recognize is Krusseldorfs amazing production skills, it's crisp, acidic, snappy and the composition never feels misplaced or unconsidered. The composition is worth mentioning, it's a more daring one. Simon is pushing the boundaries a little bit into a more glitchy and at times crazy approach, reminiscent of 'Smokers lounge', only this time it is executed exceedingly better. What is also apparent is the dark, gloomy touch. 'From soil to space' does not have the same emphasis on melodic content as Bohemian Groove did, which was a very colorful album. The color spectrum on FSTS is towards a more brown and gray one, represented on the cover art. Here the center of gravity is the gloomy atmosphere and the glitchy composition. A good way of describing this sonic gourmet dish is the merging between Simon's other project Atrium Carceri and Krusseldorf.

So there's not a ton of melodies but they do appear from time to time. Although not as to make the music veer away too far from it's gloomy tendency, at most it sounds contemplatively beautiful with an edge of sadness. I think that this was a conscious choice from Simon and a good one at that. This album was never meant to convey something happy or elevating. It adds a mature touch, and it makes me regard Simon more as a great composer than a good downtempo producer.

Music can be art, and very much so on FSTS. Every listen I just sit and “watch” the music, looking at it from different angles, letting it give rise to different notions and conceptions in my mind, there is always some little detail I didn't notice before. I would like to hang it on the wall but this is of course not possible, it's a piece of truly abstract art. It might be true that a picture says more than a thousand words, and I feel inclined to submit to you that a good album says more than words can ever describe. And this is surely the case with 'From soil to space'.

Listen to and/or buy the album at Bandcamp

Lauge & Baba Gnohm - Langbortistan

1. Langbortistan

2. Dybet

3. H2O

4.Refleksioner

5.Nordlys

6. Hypnose

7. Rejsen

How does an album come to be? Is it just parts sewn together, or is there some connection between them? Are tracks evolving from one another in one direction, from the first sound to a full fledged album, just as the universe supposedly sprang from a first instant and then evolved into the reality we can witness today, maybe the big bang was a sound, a sound that signified the starting point of the symphony that we call life. Or can the tracks interact with each other and the sound that was the starting point, are there mutual relations of supportive creation in between them? I'm not an artist, or a music producer, so I wouldn't be the right person to answer these questions. What I do know is that I have the fullest respect for creative individuals but also for creativity and creation in general, since I don't think creativity or creation solely applies to individuals, that is individual human beings, but to countless other things in the universe as well. So of course I had great respect towards Lauge&Baba Gnohm when I had the chance to follow them on a journey, starting from nothing and resulting in their first full length album. I have had the chance to listen to the tracks as they were made and comment on them, if I had any influence over them I cannot say but it was a fun task nonetheless. This also created a sort of personal relation to the album, watching it grow and evolve into it's final stages, resulting in this album being very dear to me before I even assumed the task of reviewing it, and I urge the reader to take this into account, but I will try to curb my enthusiasm while reviewing.

Longbortistan is an album with attitude, I think that after having released two radically different EP's, Daybreak and Monolith, Lauge&Baba Gnohm found an equilibrium in between those two approaches to downtempo, and made it with an initial self confidence that is reflected on this album. Responses to the EP's were good, although many reactions were that the tracks were very similar in character, but somehow still different enough to be entertaining and not repetitive. This is also the case on Långbortistan, it's hard to differentiate the tracks when listening to the album, but it never gets boring or repetitive, how this is done I cannot say but my guess is subtle elements playing a bigger role than my direct awarness can perceive.

The overall pace is slow, hard hitting, groovy and at the same time very psychedelic. There isn't a ton of complexity fused into the tracks, and this has never been a hallmark for Lague&Baba Gnohm, rather the hallmark is the strong emphasis on melodic content. Lauge&Baba Gnohm manages to fuse this cocky bass driven approach with melodic and ethereal elements, resulting in a very unique album. It's an album that brings to mind mysterious and peculiar conceptions, the true domain of psychedelic experience. As far as my experience has showed, artists tend to have this kind of air on earlier albums, fumbling around in a sort of unknown void, then after time the albums become more and more commonplace in character, I think this is a result of an artist sort of moving into a niche, not as to make an album bad or uninteresting, but that initial sense of mystery is diminished. Långbortistan is an album I would place in that early stage of development and brings about this very appealing mysterious characteristic.

The pace combined with an overall cohesive approach to the music makes it easy to depart on a more contemplative journey, so if you are into that kind of stuff this album will suit you very well. This is not space ambient or anything like that, this is highly beat driven melodic stuff, almost every track has it's own distinct melody and these are more often than not greatly executed, a perfect example of this is Hypnose(T7). The melodies are of the simplistic kind that get stuck in your head, in a good way.

Lauge&Baba Gnohm has made a groovy, psychedelic, melodic and mysterious album packed in a modest pace, resulting in a great first full length album. It's the journey that's interesting not the goal and Lauge&Baba Gnohm has just begun their long walk toward their (supposedly) not yet known niche.   


Listen to and/or buy the album at Bandcamp

Der Waldläufer – Completely Near & Far Away

1.Peace (The Calling)

2.Lands End

3.Wake Me

4.Plateau Dedans

5-Perdido Encontrado

6.Caves At Noom

7.Dawning Venus

8.Endless

9.Innerflections

10.Friction Gentle

11.Lunar Sunrise

12.Ciel Ouvert

As you stand and watch the horizon, a beautiful sunset, an airliner passing by in the sky, or looking out your window watching the leaves gently falling from the trees on a dark fresh autumn night, you might have a sense of these objects being far away. And yet all these these objects are in your perception, and your perception is near, it's you, you are in it and it's in you. All these phenomena that you can experience through your perception is in a sense completely near and far away, and this is true. Yet, if you are too look for truth in logic, then this will go against the assumption that any statement is either true or false and that any statement cannot at the same time be true and false. But if it's true that something can be completely near and far away, two opposed notions, then we need to rethink our concept of logic. Because if anyone takes a moment to reflect upon this matter, it will occur to you that this statement is completely logical, consistent and true. What is even more intriguing is that if you reflect upon it further you will realize that it's also false. If you can realize this then you will at the same time realize where truth lies, it lies in that domain of thought and experience that always eludes any classification or categorization, it just bounces back and forth defying any attempt to be controlled.

Der Waldläufers debut album is an album that centers around the emotional spectrum reached after such a realization that I just mentioned, there is nothing else a person can do than completely surrender to life. This implies an album with a slow pace, which it is. What Der Waldläufer manages to create with his music is a sense of vast spaces, a sense of being situated in a large dome of some sort, sometimes with an ethnic touch pushing the boundaries out of the dome on to the wide planes of planet earth. The music has a strong connection with our origins, the nature we live side to side with, this means that the music does not convey an sense of boundlessness, although this notion is of course perfectly imaginable.

The music is permeated with this connection to nature, the stillness, the vast fields of green, lakes stretching for miles and miles. This is music that humbles a man. Even so, this permeation of nature is littered with subtle synthesized sounds making it feel fresh and up-to-date. This occasionally pushes the album into a more space ambient oriented tone. So there you have it, nature and space. But this is not all that is represented on the album, acoustic elements occasionally sets the stage for a sometimes more loungy approach. This makes for quite an ambivalence, bordering between nature and the artificial world we all live in. But this two-edgedness settles into a wonderful emotional state, which is due certainly to the intelligent composition of the music.

Der Waldläufers debut is a slow paced emotional journey, with a strong tendency to depict nature. It's greatly composed in a non-intrusive way. It's a beautiful album well worth checking out, I think most people will be positively surprised.


Listen to and/or buy the album at Bandcamp

Track of the week

Today it  came to my attention that Vibrasphere is no more. But fear not, perhaps this marks a new beginning, Robert Elster from Vibrasphere might be continuing on his other colaboration "Kritical Audio", that would be really wonderful. Just listen and realize why.

Track of the week

To continue on last weeks track from a trance duo, here is "Manzanilla" by progressive trance act "Vibrasphere". A Swedish duo that composes wonderful music both uptempo and downtempo. Vibrasphere really captures the sense of beauty in nature, with rivers, mountains, deep seas and vast fields of green in their tracks. Enjoy!

Track of the week

There is something about acoustic music, it manages to convey a sort of genuine honesty with it's sound. Something most electronic music fail to do.

Eitan Reiter - Places I miss that I haven't been to

Label: Aleph Zero Records

Catalog#: AlephZ15

Format: CD, Album, Partially Mixed

Country: Israel

Released: 31 May 2010

Tracklist:

1. Underwater

2. Choices

3. The way too...

           4. See What I See, Hear What I Hear

           5. Eggplant Week

          6. Friends

          7. Coffe

          8. Smile

          9.My Window

         10. Room Of Creation

         11. Just Another Night (part 2)

         12. Closure

That place really had a big impact on me, so many years have passed, but still I often think about it. The sun is heading towards it's nightly rest, giving away a piercing tone of yellow over the landscape, trees are rushing by, there are cottages littered among the vivid green fields, some manors as well, but they appear with longer intervals. Some horses wander around their relatively vast enclosures, an eagle swiftly and nobly flies through the air into the sun. It's a really fantastic pastoral view that is ever changing before my eyes, that sense of constantly arriving and constantly departing induces a sense of ease throughout my being. Despite this visual symphony that is going on in my field of vision I can only think of that place, I miss it, and as ever more beautiful panoramas are appearing before me, that sense of a place, somewhere, sometime, grows stronger, it feels so familiar. And I realize, it's a place I could call home, yet, baffling as it is, I've never been there, nor do I have any idea of where it is. Some say it's an inherit feeling of paradise, when we as humans lived easily on the grass lands of Africa, but maybe it's not a lost memory, maybe it's a longing, a feeling of travel to unknown whereabouts, maybe it's a destination. Or maybe, the destination, is the journey.

Eitan Reiter is an artist that is not afraid to make exactly the music he wants to. “Places I miss that I haven't been to”, is really not your typical downtempo album, if it is anything it is very unique, mysterious, genre crossing, experimental and daring. Daring because it is so vastly imaginative, original, and extremely varied. Just as when I was sitting on the train and the landscape was constantly changing into something new, Eitans music has that same characteristic, but yet there is still a coherent picture conveyed by the music, just as landscapes just don't go from dense lush forests into dry deserts over no stretch of land. The music varies from elevated, pristine, to modestly happy tones over to deep melancholic vistas and into mysterious unexplored psychedelic realms, this is an album that has a very wide emotional scope. But don't worry, you won't be thrusted into different emotional states, Eitans seems to have realized the dignity and importance of patience, letting the listener smoothly cross from one emotional realm to another.

I more than once find myself asking, “Can this really be called music?” Eitan is not composing complex music, but more sounds sewn together into a subtle sonic tapestry bordering between music and just sound. The varied character of the album mediates a strong incentive to keep a listener interested throughout the whole album, there really is no way in predicting what will be up next. Producing a varied album involves high stakes, the possibility to not excel increases relative to the degree of variedness in the album, and I can quite confidently say that Eitan does excel in every department he's managed to squeeze into this album. To bear in mind is that this is a very hard-digested album, it took a long time before I realized that this was actually a great album. So my recommendation is to give this album a lot of time, and if you already have been listening to this but never really got into it, give it another chance, you might be surprised.

Buy the album at Aleph Zero

Track of the week

Cosmosis is a trance act that has been around since the emergence of Goa. Way back in 1996 their first album "Cosmology" was released. It seems to be quite common for trance acts to every now and then make a downtempo track, usually to end an album or maybe for some compilation. This is one of those rare gems, Cosmosis never released a full length downtempo album, sadly.

Track of the week

Phutureprimitive has recently released their new album "Kinetik".  On Kinetik they have adopted a new sound, quite radical if you compare it to their former album "Sub Conscious". So I want to highlight and old classic, which is actually a remix of a Bluetech track. Enjoy!

Track of the week

Bluetech, one of the great acts in the downtempo genre or psychedelic music in general for that matter. Bluetech har a really distinct and unique sound, which sets him apart from the rest. Enjoy!

Contemplation

One thing that I think is a flaw with pshysicist ( I have of course great respect) is that the overall conesnsus seems to be that space and time and everything that makes it up is dead, lifeless, and yet somehow we manage to sit down a sunny afternnoon, gaze upon the sunset while Chopin Waltz no.7 in C minor is flowing out of the speakers, could there be anything more alive? It seems strange to presume that complexity at a certain level suddenly creates something that is alive, like us, animals or plants. I think string theory as I understand it is a beautiful theory, and I cannot help but think that strings are not just "blind force" vibrating in certain patterns creating elementary particles. One problem that is very apparent to me, when reading physics, is that you are always yourself pushing the goal one step further away from yourself. Before string theory, there was quantum mechanics, and as Brian Greene puts it, it cannot account for any explanation of why certain elementary particles have this or that mass, energy so forth and so on. Now with string theory, voilá! of course the characteristics of elementary particles are due to the vibrational pattern of the string! But then the question arises, why is the string vibrating in that particular manner? If you are to come up with more pshysicist explanations then there will always be one or more questions arising from the conclusions you manage to create. An easy answer is to say, well, of course the string is just another form of life, and it vibrates the way it does because it wants to, thus creating whole of the elegant universe we are living in, but of course it would be childish, insane even to attribute intentionality upon "dead matter". At least the chain of explanation stops lol :) I think,, that knowledge is like a fractal, every answer gives rise to one or more questions thus, there will be an infinite number of questions and the number of answers will relative to the amount of questions become zero, beacause the number of questions move faster towards infinity (this is sound mathematical reasoning). Most people would consider this to be the standpoint of a skeptic, why? Look at the Mandelbrot, every branch is a new set of questions, and you can zoom in indefinately and it will give rise to the most astonishing patterns, and there is no end to it, doens't this make the fact that there are no answers look beautiful? You can also make the analogy to reality, of course we can never speak about reality and non-reality, how would you know the difference, there is none. Reality is vibrations, the symphony of the universe, this is exactly what string theory says, on a phiilosophical level, and that is what makes the theory so apppealing.

Welcome to the world of fractals

In the eighties the Mandelbrot was discovered. It took over 30 years before what could be called a 3D equivalent of the Mandelbrot, the Mandelbulb was discovered (or invented). Fractals are a stunning phenomena and I believe that the implications and consequences ahead stemming from these strange worlds are unfathomable, at least at our present moment. Who knows, when we can probe space beyond the Planck length, is this what will reveal itself? Sit back, take a deep breath and gaze upon a thousand sunsets, remember all of this is created by a simple mathematical formula, none of this is "designed", this is a world created solely by mathematics.

Track of the week

Sometimes it's good to take a holiday away from the city of contemplation and just enjoy life for a bit.

The sane man is the strange man...

Track of the week

Today I want to highlight artist Field Rotation. Since the release of this album it has been spinning in my stereo tirelessly. It's hard to pick a track from this album but it finally boiled down to this one. This album is a limited edition and unfortunately it's already out of stock, but there is a digital release available at Fluid Audios sub-label Facture

Lemonchill - Interview

Today I sit down with Idan Or aka Lemonchill, to ask a few questions, about his life, his music. Also I try to dig into his ontology about  reality.

• So let's get the formalities done, could you give me a quick resumé of who you are and what you do?

My name is Idan Or my project (stage name) is Lemonchill, my music style is electronica although many people “tag” my music as chill and downtempo. I personally think it is more electronica oriented.

Yeah, it's really hard to label music, the borders between genres are very hazy and often there is not even any consent of the span of any specific genre. This is especially noticeable in experimental areas of music creation.

• What was the pivotal reason that made you decide to release your first album “Sentant”?

Hmm.. many asked me that question and it is still hard for me to answer that, I guess I should thank a very special lady I met at that time that was the “muse” for creating and making the album “Sentant”. Just as the album title says I had to release the feelings and express what I felt at that time. I think many people can relate to the feelings and emotions conveyed by the tracks on the album. It was a hard eight months period when I created the album, very intense and personal. I isolated myself from almost everybody I knew and from everyday life, I barely had time to eat or sleep just persistently working on the tracks, but I think the end result was very satisfying.

• Your second album “ Journey through an electric garden” was released with a very short time span succeeding your first release. Was there an abundance of tracks or did you just have a very creative period?

Well “Sentant” was complete around the end of 2007, the album “Journey through an electric garden” was complete around mid 2008 so there is a big time difference and those two albums also represents two different time periods I had. You can hear the changes in vibes between the two. “Journey through an electric garden” is more upbeat, I would call it more experimental and minimal compared with “Sentant”.

• How come you have released (relatively) such a large amount of remix albums?

Been asked that a lot. I think it is a unique remix project where each album concentrate on one music style. The first one “Sleeping with giants” released by Ricochet dreams records, was downtempo chill electronica. The second “Conversations with god” released by Altar records was progressive trance style. And the last one named “Room 305” progressive house style was released his year on Bonzai progressive records.

Personally I am extremely satisfied by this remix project as I listened to some very cool remixs to my tracks.

I can imagine that, it must be very interesting to hear other artists interpretations of your own work.

• 
  
  Do you have any favorite artists of your own and if so which ones?

Cant really say if I have any particular artist, I love many music genres although I do have my own favorite songs and tracks but I guess everybody has their own loved songs. I do love what bill leeb and his music partner ryhms fulber ( conjure one,delerium, front line assembly etc) has been creating in the past 20 year

• Can we expect to see you on any festival this summer?

Yeah sure hadra festival in France 7-10 July this year and the aurora festival Greece 23-29 august this year.

• How do you regard music? Is it just a natural thing for you to create or is there also some kind of genuine idea or concept you want to convey with it?

Most tracks I made started from a sound, a phrase, from a movie or some emotion or experience. I had that I wanted to express, I always loved music and always “played” tracks and music in my head, I am glad I had the opportunity to learn how to create and produce it so people can listen to it too and hear whats been going on in my mind.

That's nice, then you are actually trying to express yourself with your music, that is something that really can't be said of most music these days. Speaking of which, what is going on in your mind as of now? Are you working on anything new?

A new remix I made for martin juha new ep named :” memento” will be released early next month.

It has a more space ambient vibes and I am really loving this remix martin was satisfied by this remix too, so I hope the people will react the same. I am also working now with an artist form Israel named salva, we already created a few demos. The demos are much more raja ram, shpongle style so I think it is a good direction I am taking. I am currently busy trying to promote the remix albums so I dont have much time to create new tracks but I already have new ideas as to how the next album should sounds like and what vibes and atmosphere I would like to create there.

• What do you think the psychedelic experience is? Does it have any ontological relevance or is it more like watching a movie, just something that happens in your mind, a story, a fairytale?

I think it is a very unique and personal experience that changes from each person. Each person can have its own psychedelic experience and it will not be similar to what his friend had cause we never know what he or she experienced and what went in his mind at that moment.

• But don't you think that is a possibility to sort of generalize the experience, and in some way attack it with a scientific attitude? That there is something in common for everyone that experiences it?

Have to say no, I don’t think you can generalize people and the psychedelic experiences they had. You got the religious experiences you have the LSD experiences etc. I still think any experience is unique to the individual. The only thing I can think about is that all those people that do have it or go through this stage seek something more then the ordinary life or reality, I do think they this can “altar” the way you see life and especially the person own life and experiences.

* Allright :) Well thank you very much Idan for this interview and I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavours!

Track of the week

One of the best songs ever made, featured on (dare I say it) THE best album ever created, regardless of genre or time period. Well, this is my sincere and absolute standpoint. I think this song represents the most complete ending of an album, why you might ask, justifiably of course. This track is very much like a deep prayer, a call for hope, a desperate assumption that someone or something is tending the light at the end of the tunnel. This track leaves you in a state of mystery and wonder, it is not an ending track in the ordinary sense, because it doesn't include closure, and this really is the true domain of life and the psychedelic experience, mystery and non-closure. I urge everyone to get a thorough listen to this album because this track is taken out of context, and while it's still remarkably fantastic, it's hard to experience it's fullest grandiosity without the whole.

Ott - Mir

1. One Day I Wish To Have This Kind Of Time

2. Adrift In Hilbert Space

3. Owl Stretching Time

4. Squirrel And Biscuits

5. A Nice Little Place

6. Mouse Eating Cheese

7. The Aubergine Of The Sun

There aren't many psychedelic dub acts out there, not to my knowledge at least. The only one I can actually think of is Ott. With classics such as Blumenkraft and Hallucinogen in Dub on his credentials, this is no no light weight fighter, and if you don't believe that, the bass lines will prove it to you. Ott is an artist that isn't serious, although I do not doubt his sincerity, it only takes a moment to realize that this guy has tremendous humor with track names like “Jack's Cheese And Bread Snack “, “Billy The Kid Strikes Back “, “Roflcopter “ and maybe the best track name I've ever encountered “Adrift In Hilbert Space”.

Speaking of Hilbert Space, you all know what that is like right? No? Then let me explain, let's take an electron and confine it into a circumscribed section in Hilbert Space, then imagine that this volume is reduced into a smaller and smaller space. As the space gets smaller and smaller surrounding the electron, the electron will start to feel frustrated, not able to express itself to it's fullest content. This will throw the poor little electron in a frenzy, moving faster and faster in more and more erratic patterns, there have even been sightings of electrons getting frustrated to such a degree by the violation of their freedom that some have actually crossed solid physical barriers. But let's now imagine that we limit this space with a material that even the most frustrated electron can't cross, then we accelerate the cube that we confined the electron in up to the speed of light, only to stop it to a halt in the fraction of a second, we throw it into a black hole, we let it twist and spin, integrate and disintegrate. During all this process the electron itself has gone into the most erratic and frenzied behavior known in the whole of Hilbert Space. Well, if you can picture this, then you have an adequate depiction of what it is like listening to some of the tracks on Mir.

In plain English this simply means that there is amazing talent and skill fused into some tracks on this album. I'm thinking especially of tracks 3 and 4, “Owl Stretching Time” and “Squirrel and Bisquits”. The universe is a celebration that existence is, and Mir is a celebration that the universe is.

Ott's former album, Skylon was an album imbued with a great sense of humbleness. If I am not mistaken, this album was made shortly before, during or after Ott became a father. And I think that this gift of life (not that I would know anything about it) is depicted on that album, the music is very soft, tender and sweet, and if music could show you color (which I think it can with the help of adequate substances) then the music on Skylon would be pink. Mir still contains some of that essence but is a much more groovy and energetic album.

If you're interested in hearing the album out and/or buying it head over to http://ottsonic.bandcamp.com/

History repeats itself...

Well according to Terence McKenna and his theory of history and time. Where he argues that if we pay enough attention we can see the resonance of history in our everyday life, and as we move closer to the "end date" history will repeat itself at an alarmingly increasing rate. I believe that the intuition of Terence's theory is plausible, although I do not agree with him that the ordinary laws of physics will start do disintegrate, I mean honestly would we really want that? But I came to think of this when reading about the disaster in Japan, and I cannot see any other analogue for this event than the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during world war II. So, where will you see Rome fall today?

Track of the week

Are there any words?

I don't understand I know nothing about it

The reason for the emergence of mathematics

A very very, or maybe not so very long time ago, beings evolved the ability to engage in rational discourse. Language was one of the key elements of this ability, language was a necessary  condition for this to be possible. With the possibility of contemplation, an ever increasing range of questions started to originate in the mind of these evolved beings. This constantly growing nexus of unanswered questions started to erode the still minds of these rational thinkers. After many centuries or even millenniums  of engaging in this rational discourse, the obvious fact that there was no absolute truth, no certain knowledge to answer the questions that originated from this discourse, started to change the still minds of these beings into a stormy ocean and the feeling that came with it became unbearable. So instead of finding peace in the storm by letting the waves carry them to the shore, they invented something that could be called certainty or absolute knowledge, namely mathematics. Now all the uneasy souls could engage in this sphere of security, finding peace inside a system of certainty, a certainty confined in the system itself. And since then beings have found their still shore inside this system of certainties, and by fear neglected any opportunity to look outside the system into the truth.

Track of the week

Wonderful piece of music, maybe better suited for cold and rainy autumn nights rather than sunny spring days, but we'll have to make an exception this time!

Solar Fields - Origin 1

1. Silent Waling

2. Unite

3. Bigger Stream

4. Almost There

5. Next Waiting

6. Embraced

7. Going In

8. Automatic Sun

9. Reborn

10. OCT

Yet another Solar Fields album hits the shelves, or perhaps better put, yet another Solar Fields album is hitting the letter slits in various places around the globe. Did we have enough? There has been a lot of Solar Fields lately and sometimes you just have to take that last piece of cherry pie, I mean it looks so tasty, then you end up feeling ill cursing your gluttonous nature. Luckily for us this cherry pie was one of those made of yoghurt, meaning you can eat as much as you want without having to experience the consequences of your actions.

This is not new material from our dear friend Magnus, it's a collection of tracks produced under a time spam starting ten years ago. Having that said, this means that there is no “real” connection between the tracks, unless you make one up of course. It could always be argued that if there is some track lacking cohesiveness with the rest of the album, really there is nothing wrong with the album, it's YOU being out of place. So it's not a psybient album in the ordinary sense, but neither is it an album with just ten separate tracks good for listening each on their own . As with all the music coming out from Magnus, this is very profound music, and it's not easy to get a good listening experience, this is something I think has been a red line throughout all Solar Fields albums, there are exceptions of course. Namely Unite(T2), which is something out of the ordinary, and to understand what I mean and you are sitting with your cheap headphones by your computer or ipod, don't bother, this track needs a real hifi system to get this baby running. If I would describe unite with a quote, I'd do it with a quote from (peace be upon him) Terence McKenna, “It's very much like riding an enormous roller coaster, once that baby rolls out of the station, do not stand up, do not try to climb out of your car, shut up and hang on with the faith that most people have lived through this”. Another great example of a Solar Fields “stand alone” track is Little Green Cubes, on some compilation I don't remember. I think this is something that is very prominent with Magnus's music, many albums can seem dull and boring, almost unimaginative, until you pop the cd into a high end stereo system. He truly is a sound designer.

Being a mix of different tracks from different time periods there is a lot of diversity on the album, for good and bad, some might interpret tracks like Bigger Stream(T3) as odd and out of place, and I can understand that, but it's not a bad track per se. On the other hand tracks like Almost There(T4), and Silent Walking(T1) is very Solar Fieldesque, this track would fit perfectly on a more thought through album. And yes the lack of direction on the album does hurt the album as a whole although not the individual tracks. The composition, production and all that is great, and I don't think anyone would have expected any less. To me there is only one bad track on the album and that is OCT(T10), and I don't really see how this track passed the quality test.

I have mixed feelings about this album, there are great tracks on it, superb even, and some not so great although none bad except the last one. But the album leaves me with a wish that Magnus had taken the better tracks, maybe worked on some new ones and tried to make a new psychedelic journey altogether, there is obviously material for it on the album. Still it's far better than most music out there so I shouldn't complain. I guess I'll just take Leaving Home for a spin and relive the good old days.

The album can be found at Ultimae's website

Track of the week

Lovely track from a great album. I'm sure this one will be running at several festivals this summer.

Music is the language Of the future

This thesis is claimed by a simple rational argument:

Language is noise with an arbitrary attached meaning and language is communication.

Music is noise with no specified attached meaning.

If language is communication then music is communication.

Music is a more complex form of noise than language.

If language is noise and language is communication and music is a more complex for of noise, then music is a more complex form of communication than language.

Music is language in it's more complex form, it is the language of increased complexity, it is the language of the future.

Field Rotation – Acoustic Tales

Label: Fluid Audio

Catalog#: fluidaudio007

Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition

Country: UK

Released: 31 Jan 2011

Genre: Classical, Electronic

Style: Neo-Classical, Downtempo, Experimental

01. Acoustic Tale 1 (Introduction) (8:30)
02. Acoustic Tale 2 (5:19)
03. Acoustic Tale 3 (4:21)
04. Acoustic Tale 4 (With Danny Norbury) (7:18)
05. coustic Tale 5 (8:45)
06. Acoustic Tale 6 (6:37)
07. Acoustic Tale 7 (Inspired By Franz Kafka) (4:54)
08. Acoustic Tale 8 (Dedicated To Sergei Rachmaninoff) (5:08)
09. Acoustic Tale 9 (7:28)
10. Acoustic Tale 10 (6:21)
11. Acoustic Tale 11 (Appendix) (4:09)

This album is a tough nut to crack. Mainly since I am not used to review this kind of music, namely modern classical, neo classical, ambient or whatever name you wish to put on it. My first encounter with Field Rotation was on the compilation Hope, also released by Fluid Audio, he also made an appearance on Imaginary Friends by Ultimae, both of these appearances was with Regenzeit, altough with two different versions of it. This track with it's different variations is without doubt one of the most amazing psychedelic compositions that has reached my ears. It's up there with the greatest of the great within the psychedelic movement.

Naturally the encounter with this wonderful piece of music raised my attention towards this artists, and it was with great anticipation I awaited his first album Licht und Schatten released on Fluid Audio. A great album, but sadly none of the tracks on this album could compete with Regenzeit. I thought it was strange when Field Rotation claimed that Licht und Schatten was probably the last electronic album he would release, but this only shows that nobody knows anyone better than him or herself. After having listened through Acoustic Tales it becomes clear that Christoph Berg is more at ease creating music with a strong emphasis on acoustic elements.

As the name implies this album is a nexus of different tales, and the album does convey an emotional story from start to end. Overall the music is quite abrasive, gritty, dark and contemplative, but at the same time amazingly beautiful with a great use of elongated violin strings. I love emotional music and if artists like Solar Fields, Krusseldorf, Bluetech, James Murray, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Shpongle and the like can be seen as to create some sort of emotional psychedelic sci-fi stories, which is by no means anything bad of course, then Field Rotation with Acoustic Tales can be seen as creating that classical dark and gloomy fairy tale that you can find in old dusty books hidden in an old mansions cellar, it's an emotional journey that brings to mind more ancient conceptions. Even with this strong contrast towards downtempo music I just mentioned, Field Rotation manages to keep some of that psychedelic sense shown in Regenzeit and Licht und Schatten, this is especially apparent in acoustic tale 2, it can also be find it acoustic tale 4 and 5.

It's obvious there is a lot of thought and work behind this album, it only takes a glimpse on the packaging of this release to realize that. And sadly most you you reading this might never see that package since it's already sold out. I will not go into interpreting what the packaging and all it's contents could mean, I'd probably get it wrong anyways. The album is sold out but, I want to urge everyone and anyone to get a hold of this masterpiece no matter what. I don't know if it will be released in digital format but we can always hope, otherwise I guess you know what to do :)