A new name to many of you but a guy whose music I've had the privilege of hearing for many years. This is his first CD and it's a blinder, believe me. Just three long tracks over seventy two minutes, and the first thing to be mentioned is that it's NOT another member of the 'let's do Tangerine Dream' crowd. No, it's far more special than that, for instead of TD, it takes much of its influence from the likes of Ash Ra, Grosskopf with touches of Klaus Schulze in there too. The opening track is a slow builder that remains spacey, but rhythmic, for much of its running time, and it's one of those tracks that will appeal to all fans of Klaus Schulze yet is not a clone of his music as the European synth merchants are prone to doing. Instead it charts some new paths, preferring to stay on the side of creating new things at every step of the way while the rhythm on the bottom slowly glides forward, and some stirring lead lines that are often quite distant, giving the impression of a Pinhas-like figure playing on the distant horizon, allied to sections of synth choirs and gently chugging sequencers, with a solid feel to it all and yet a light and vast sense of space without being particularly cosmic. If anything the sound is a lot busier than most practitioners of the art, without being cluttered, and a sense of purpose and structure remains throughout its thirty plus minute running time. Superb stuff. The similarly long second track starts with some richly textured soundscapes from synths, choirs and string synths, all producing a most glorious opening sound, again without sounding twee or copyist, pretty spacey, before opening out into a long passage that has the aforementioned influences written right across it, but doen in such a languid way as to be thoroughly hypnotic and yet constantly enjoyable at the same time. As the trip progresses the AshRa elements become more prevalent in the crisp percussive qualities of the rhythms, the flowing layers of beautiful synthscapes and, added to all of this, are further layers of synths, effects and Blake-like whooshing sounds that really take you on one mighty interstellar journey, the sound being so full by now and yet so entrancing, that it's almost too much to take in at first sitting. Eventually, the sounds subside only to change direction and feel, rise up and take us on a new path. Overall, one amazing track. The final eleven minute piece is full of shifting, rumbling rhyth, layers, early Schulze-like synths flowing like revved-up icebergs across an icy sea of solid rhythmic splendours from percussive and sequenced passages. In all, then, this is a much more structured and flowing album than I would have expected, and while he exhibits his trademark approach of making the tracks sound busy, he successfully avoids the excesses of the past and has come up with an album that will surely win the hearts and minds of most synth fans into any of the previously mentioned artists - a 'must buy', excellently played and produced, a great sound and at this price, essential listening.
