BETWEEN INTERVAL: Secret Observatory (CD on Spotted Peccary Music)
This release from 2005 features 56 minutes of serene ambience.
Between Interval is Stefan Jönsson.
A synthetic surf washes over an expansive drone, clearing the way for launch. Harmonic textures collide, intermingle, and separate, propagating fresh tonalities that flood outward to fill the sky. These ambient tones surround the listener, generating a sonic taste of realms far overhead and beyond conventional perception. The music is a lens, but the views revealed are not just of a vast interplanetary district. They afford glimpses of inner frontiers too.
Languid electronic textures drift with regal disposition, cascading against the edges of the mind, like tantalizing honey touching the tip of the tongue. Just a tactile hint inspires a desire for more. These atmospheric tones possess subtle bridges that lead to alternative passages of radiant tranquillity. Transitions from one to the next seem ghostly, barely perceptible, as the rarefied resonance persists in probing new territory.
Harmonic flows dominate these compositions. There are no pinnacles or moments of blinding insight. Everything is boundless, coaxing the minds of the audience to adopt this infinite mien. An environment of limitless potential is created from this heavenly sway of sparse tonalities.
DEAN DE BENEDICTIS: Salvaging the Past (CD on Spotted Peccary Music )
This CD from 2005 features 75 minutes of elegant electronic music.
Joining De Benedictis on some of these tracks are: Peter Ludwig on cello, Cathryn Deering on voice, Nels Cline on guitar, and John Wells on clay drum and water bottle.
On this release, De Benedictis blends electronic sounds with acoustic instruments, producing stately tuneage that boosts ambience up a notch into a realm of glistening vibrancy. Shivering tonalities unfurl and expand, establishing a majestic firmament of timeless proportion. Auxiliary textures manifest and dwindle, adding harmonic embellishment which increases the heavenly mien of the music. Sighing, waning, rising and expanding, these crystalline garnishes provide tasteful sonic decoration for the already lavish foundations of sparkling synthetic origin.
The utilization of acoustic instruments lends a classical seasoning that faces forward, not evoking any antique flair. Intellectually sawing cellos and ethereal flutes are employed with meticulous skill. The mood they generate is a futurist one, yearning to define tomorrow through the application of yesterday's anamnesis. By salvaging the past, De Benedictis constructs solid foreshadowings of unrealized achievements, whether they be manmade or natural evolutions. One gets the impression that events of substantial consequence have been captured and converted into sonic structures that exhibit bigger-than-life magnitude.
A satisfying dose of relaxing music that saturates the audience with subtle invigoration.
JON JENKINS: Beyond City Light (CD on Spotted Peccary Music)
This release from 2005 features 63 minutes of dreamy ambience.
Jenkins (on synths, piano, guitar, percussion, voice and textures) is joined on this release by: Linda Sargent on voice, Howard Givens and Erik Wollo on guitar, David Helpling on guitar, percussion and additional programming, Greg Klamt on flutes and ocarinas, Matthew Stewart on bass, snare and cymbals, and Steven Schreier on deep metals.
Dreamy electronic textures ooze like sweet mist, spreading from a peripheral source and surrounding the listener with lucid serenity. This sparse milieu eventually thickens with electronic density periodically augmented by temperate percussives, majestic piano, vaporous guitar and heavenly crooning.
Even these embellishments have a way of swelling, gradually gaining puissance and power, until the melodies are awash with character and softly demonstrative vigor. All the while, this strength is aimed at sedation, swamping the audience in a relaxed state that possesses just a trace of uplifting invigoration.
While general harmonic in nature, this music maintains a vital melodic foundation. The riffs are subtle as they emerge from the overall atmospheric climate, then swiftly dominate the tracks, transforming the floating tuneage into vibrant compositions that flavor the dreamy flow with engaging diversions.
Jenkins' sonic voyage takes the audience far from the sprawl of urban civilization, venturing deep into the unspoiled wilderness of nature, where a bond is formed between this virgin environment and the substantial calm that resides within each listeners' soul.
J. ARIF VERNER: From a Distant Horizon (CD on Spotted Peccary Music)
This CD from 2005 features 53 minutes of atmospheric ambience.
Joining Verner on this release are Mar Gueye and Jeff Haynes on percussion.
This music generates a certain gaseous quality. While environmental samples are mixed with lush electronic textures and understated rhythms, the demeanor of the harmonics retains an atmospheric presence, like melodies evaporating off an expansive shimmering pond. This tenuous posture remains reasonably constant throughout the compositions, undulating according to Verner's careful guidance, resisting gravity or any intrusive winds.
The electronics are very delicate. Tonal hints waft in the air, merging with each other to create subtle pulsations that are attuned to breathing of the night. These sonic tapestries unfurl, spreading to fill the sky with their fragile structures. Auxiliary punctuations sparkle from the midst of the music, not unlike stars twinkling through the ephemeral veil.
Some pieces feature soft percussion, utilized in a soothing fashion instead of any dynamic propulsion. These tempos float in tandem with the atmospheric textures, languid and unhurried, adopting a stately, muted disposition.
Glittering harp strings decorate a few passages, adding a melancholic yearning to these tracks' sighing resonance.
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