All Melody - Nils Frahm

Track list:

1. The Whole Universe Wants to Be Touched
2. Sunson
3. A Place
4. My Friend the Forest
5. Human Range
6. Forever Changeless
7. All Melody
8. #2
9. Momentum
10. Fundamental Values
11. Kaleidoscope
12. Harm Hymn

Running time: 73 minutes
Released: 2018

So another insert here, as I decided I did want to follow up on investigating Nils Frahm after the collaboration with Ólafur Arnalds. The first disc sold me, even though I was disappointed by the second.

The first, short, intro tune starts with ~10 seconds of silence. In a sub-2 minute track that's a significant chunk of time. I can see how and why silence might be used in structuring pieces, but I do wonder about tacking it on to the start or end of the track. In a live performance it might set tone and expectation, but on record? Not so sure.

This is a long disc and I have got up early on a Sunday to make time for it. I failed to find the right energy to do it last night (wash out all round, alas) and am trying to set that right. Soon I have to go off to do a huge shop (for two separate households) and then play dutiful son for a while. Yesterday was cleaning mold from windows that hadn't seen a cleanse in too long. Life's full of fun, eh?

It takes a little while to kick in, but Sunson has the pulsing staccato electronics that endeared the first disc of the Frahm/Arnalds collaboration to me. These kind of rhythms and patterns appeal to me a lot, I wonder why? A constant reference point, perhaps, or a subconscious connection to the heartbeat? I don't think "pulse" is a bad term for it at all. Over the top of this there are wandering pipes. I am reminded a little of Vangelis of all people. There is a little bit of a throwback vibe here. Then, about two thirds of the way through the track just stops. This is better use of silence, a reset, reformulate. The theme that comes back after the break is immediately relevant to what went before but framed very differently, so the quick enforced quiet between the two presentations allows for that relationship without the change being jarring or lost.

I find this hard to place. There's more going on in the pieces than perhaps I expected there would be so it's less immediately relaxing than I anticipated. Finding the words to describe where it would sit is tough. 

Vangelis probably is my best touchstone or reference point, despite this being less synth heavy, because of the variety. There are similarities in the structuring of the tracks and themes moreso than the actual sounds. Even the use of space, such as in the nice keyboard melody on My Friend the Forest, has echoes of the Greek. Actually here I feel there are actual melodic reflections of Vangelis tracks too, albeit with a more stripped down sound. The next track then veers off in a different direction, with taught trumpets that remind me of Scandinavian jazz, but with a slow tempo that, in combination, is really quite disturbing and hard to listen to.

By contrast, when Frahm brings out the keyboard, he has a nice, light touch, surprisingly so.

Is the title meant to be ironic? All Melody starts with anything but. Sure, a tune emerges from the electronics as it moves forward but it is not immediately melodic. My point of reference here dives to Ben Prunty's soundtrack for sci-fi roguelike FTL, a frustrating little game scored perfectly to enhance its tension.  Here the track builds a similar sense of edginess, the sound rounds out over time and the crescendo this involves is effective at subtly ratcheting up that dial further too. The track evolves as it goes, whilst always maintaining that tense aspect. 

You know, I totally missed a change of track there. The electronic rhythm seemed to continue right through with no break, and when you're talking two back-to-back 9 minute tunes...I am liking this mid section of the album though. Pulse, tempo, and tension. Ambient or electronica can be waffly and vague, purposeless. These three elements give it form and structure, give something to get your teeth into, something to lose yourself in, rather than simply losing track of the tune. 

I am losing track of this though... my mind has checked out, seeking refuge in nothingness as an antidote to the day ahead. I look forward to the day when I don't feel put upon, but I don't know if my mind will ever let me get there. We're almost through the album now, Kaleidoscope and its messy approximation of wind chimes and devotional singing is a but jarring. The low vocals on their own are nicely curated but the sounds layered over them are less appealing. It seemed as though the track got better in the latter stages of its 8 minute timeframe but to be honest I think I blocked out the bits that were less immediately accessible to me and concentrated on the part that I enjoyed

Overall this has been a strange listen for a number of reasons. The music itself is certainly one, but the timing (starting before 9am on a Sunday) is probably the key one, along with cutting away between tracks to get things done. It's not ideal, but then neither is finding a 73 minute block to dedicate when life continues on. I need my space and time, but for my own wellbeing I need to find a way to continue things like this, too... if I am not, it means my energy levels are down and I'm probably in a rut. 

The final track ends with silence, more than 10 seconds worth, but still a noticeable mirror to how it began. Overall I think there are some wonderful moments in this disc but it struggles to maintain the peak quality throughout.

The Cold Vein - Cannibal Ox

Track list:

1. Iron Galaxy
2. Ox Out the Cage
3. Atom
4. A B-Boy’s Alpha
5. Raspberry Fields
6. Straight Off the D.I.C.
7. Vein
8. The F-Word
9. Stress Rap
10. Battle for Asgard
11. Real Earth
12. Ridiculoid
13. Painkillers
14. Pigeon
15. Scream Phoenix

Running time: 73 minutes
Released: 2001

Complete change of pace now. Hip-hop. I received this as a gift at some point and held onto it because I seem to recall it having a really distinct voice, and a powerful presence... one that made an impression. I listened to some hip-hop when I was younger, then drifted completely away from it as it slid into glorification of violence and toxic masculinity more than because the beat, voice and backing combinations no longer worked for me.

That first sentence belies good intentions to get some momentum behind these listens again, yet another couple of weeks have slid by since I managed to make the time. In truth time is not the problem, energy and the right mood is. I think I need to just fight through that though... hence doing this post now when I would rather be listening to elegiac dirges than punchy pointed verse.

There is a darkness, but a nice musicality with it, in the backing track to opener Iron Galaxy, an almost DJ Shadow-like pulse and groove to it. Getting it out there early - this format won't do this album justice because of the difficulty focusing on two sets of words at the same time, like keeping track of two conversations in a crowded bar. What strikes me though is the immediacy and accessibility of the composition as a whole. Whilst we go straight into the deep end of really heavy verse and it's all low, slow and threat, the tunes are completely supportive of that and yet at the same time interesting and approachable. There's no barrier to entry, no wall of crass commercialism to bounce off, no over-sexualised, women-as-property video image appearing in my head. The lyrics may contain these things somewhere, but it is not the fist impression or immediately obvious. This feels darker, more serious but, paradoxically, becomes more immediate, appreciable and enjoyable for that seriousness. It is hard core not lowest common denominator, but easier to get than the shallower trashy offerings of others.

There are some nice horns in the background, giving the sound of a more relaxed view of a city at night. The tension that of a pot boiler... a noir film. It fits - those same tensions are explored in the explicit lyrics. The delivery is interesting, but its the compositions that keep me hooked. Who says you can't rap over interesting music rather than transparent beats? Not these guys, for sure.

There is definitely a danger here... violence implicit and explicit throughout. Threats and nastiness. It jars a little but it doesn't come across as glamourised or trivial, not used idly. The tracks that make that the focus feel weaker somehow, but still not the turn off that I might have expected. Mostly this comes down to the fantastic arrangements, vital beats and tension-strewn top ends. Snappy electronica. I could almost see myself listening to this as an instrumental album in places. I think if the lyric was removed you might notice the empty spaces in there, but you might also end up with a smooth if grungy electronica; a little overlong, I suspect, but serviceable.

A couple of distractions pulled me out of the zone created by those grooves and I find myself on the outside bouncing off Vein. It just goes to show how fickle or fragile our relationship with music can be in the moment. I have been skipping past several tracks I love in recent days, searching for things more suited to mood. Yet if you give the tracks a chance to start they can suck you in... the ambience of The F-Word drag me back in forcefully, the backing here is amazing and synergises with the accents of the MCs in a perfect storm. I am less enamoured of the actual lyrics but the sounds - the sounds are great.

My mind has blanked. Words failing me. Thoughts not establishing themselves. 73 minutes of this is a lot of album, constantly switched on. I am, what... two thirds through now? No, less. I feel a little like I have been bludgeoned. The easy access I spoke about earlier? That seems to have shut down and we are into deeper, darker water now. There is less going on in the arrangements, more focus on really punchy, incessant rap. It's not fast per se, it doesn't stop to breathe - only giving space in the brief changes between tracks - and the voices are hard, edgy and grounded.

I find myself tuning in and out more, my ears pricking up for moments rather than tracks. The opening of Ridiculoid provides an interesting contrast to what came before it, but once the pattern for the number is set, the interest wanes a little and I let the (here genuinely quick) vocal delivery wash over me, my head a blur of... something? It's all too muddled to describe, so I blank it. I should note I don't count this against the quality of the offering. If anything the relentlessness that has forced that shut down is a mark in its favour. It doesn't pull punches, and I am starting to feel punch-drunk.

It is midday on a Sunday in early September, I've done nothing strenuous for 2 days and I feel beaten up.

Painkillers ends in an odd way. Beeps like a countdown timer, then an instrumental outro, long after the MCs have stopped. Its nice enough but it feels out of place on this album, a window and some space in what has been a very tight, full on experience. The opening to the following track, Pigeon, carries that sense to it too, and even after the vocal begins there is more air here. Apt. The voices have softened, the tone of the piece more optimistic, as characterised by some longer horn notes and the time between verses. Even my beat up ears are able to actually enjoy this. In places it is stripped right back - bass, drums and voice, in others you get the top end that gives that airiness and openness. I am not sure I would classify it as best in show, but Pigeon feels like exactly the right thing at the right time, an antidote of sorts to what came before. It kinda feels like it should be the closer, but there is one more to go.

Spacey.

What's that? Well, there is a Vangelis-like tinge to the electronic, space-like sounds that begin out final track (how's that for a random tag combo). That sense doesn't survive the opening of the lyric but it does fill me with a little mirth and give the track a lightness that means that whilst it is definitely tenser, more compact than Pigeon, it doesn't destroy that sense of openness created by its predecessor. I'm not so keen on the repetition of the track title, Scream Phoenix, in the vocal, and it feels like it should shut down after 3 minutes rather than run the extra 2 of instrumental that we have tacked on here.

Closing thoughts on this one are that it is probably the best hip-hop album I have ever heard, not that that is saying much. It is engaging, it is brutal, it is interesting. I prefer, though, to engage in smaller doses. An hour and 13 with no break is too much for me. I suspect the impact is lost a bit as a change up in a shuffle, but the impact here was too big to be truly enjoyable by the end.

Clannad - Clannad

Track list:

1.Níl Sé Ina La (Níl Sé'n La)
2.Thios Chois Na Trá Domh
3.Brian Boru's March
4.Siobhán Ní Dhuibhir
5.An Mhaighdean Mhara
6.Liza
7.An tOileán Úr
8.Mrs. McDermott
9.The Pretty Maid
10.An Pháirc
11.Harvest Home
12.Morning Dew
13.An Bealach Seo 'ta Romham

Running time: 43 minutes
Released: 1973

I don't really recall the wheres or whys of this purchase. Why this Clannad album (and no others)? Why Clannad at all? I can make a guess at the second question - it must have been after I fell in love with the sound of Gaelic folk song from hearing Julie Fowlis - but the first will remain a mystery. I have preconceptions and prejudices going in here, and I suspect that this might not be the most interesting thing I ever hear, but you never know. It packs 13 tracks into the same time that Vangelis used for 8 on The City last time out, so at least it will keep things moving.

We open with a chanted Gaelic vocal over some resonant drumming and with a suitably ethnic sounding string section. It wanders a bit then falls into a bluesy, bassy solo. It really is a very odd track. I rather like the music but the vocal is atrocious. The overall sound is a hodgepodge of weirdness.

What follows is a more traditional Irish folk sound, the strings  and vocal harmonies both harking back to rural folk music. I am far from impressed or enchanted with it though. A tinny quality to the sound really dates this record, and the sensibilities are more faux-folk than sounding genuine. It's as inaccessible and bland as the ancient film version of Around the World in 80 Days that I have on silent is utterly awful. I find myself more drawn to the subtitles on the film than the notes on the album though; I should turn it off really.

Track 4 seems to be Scarborough Fair by another name - at least the first melody is straight from that standard. Folk tunes were certainly shared and re-used so I guess that is no great surprise. The number is more agreeable for the familiarity, but I have to say I am not enamoured of the female vocalist at all. There are some less aggravating moments here, but I find myself paying less attention with each passing note. It somehow seems to combine the excesses of 70s rock with a horribly cliched approach to folk. It's all so... ridiculous, stereotypical and off-putting.

The extent to which this mess is dated is quite remarkable. Simple harp tunes like Mrs McDermott are on the better end of the offerings here, but even here there is a twangy quality to the sound that is really hard to like. 

The Pretty Maid is actually in English, but the switch of language doesn't help. I have absconded, run out on my duties here... stopped paying attention. None of what I am hearing is engaging me at all. Too bad. Unfortunately not bad in an entertaining way either - it didn't offer me a lot to write about. Repeating the same observations many times does not make for an interesting writing or reading experience, and there isn't anything funny about my dislike of these pieces either. Too cliched is about the size of it. If I didn't already know the date I would have put it as late 60s rather than early 70s, but it has none of the enduring appeal of classics from that age - probably because of the tweeness, and the fact that folk has moved on into more agreeable areas. 

Just waiting for it to stop. There. At last.

The City - Vangelis

Track list:

1. Dawn
2. Morning Papers
3. Nerve Centre
4. Side Streets
5. Good to See You
6. Twilight
7. Red Lights
8. Procession

Running time: 43 minutes
Released: 1990

I remember my dad having this, and hearing it a fair bit whilst in my early teens. I remember this being more immediately accessible than some Vangelis, I remember it including sounds of people going about busy lives in a city. Very much in theme. I do not remember many specifics, and it will be interesting to see how it has aged.

This album is a collection of shorter pieces than I instinctively associate with Vangelis, so I expect it will fly by. Dawn opens in a way I find incredibly reminiscent of Blade Runner (still almost certain to be my most inter-linked post), which is certainly not a bad thing. All soft synthetics it is a gentle beginning, though I would personally suggest that the sounds are more evocative of sundown than sunup.  It ends with footsteps, walking us into the next track with it's odd voice over, busy sounds in the background including emergency sirens, and then a chime and breathy pipe tune that feels more Amazon jungle than Amazon corporate headquarters.

So far the overall effect of the pieces and the theme are at odds rather than in concert, despite the presence of these other sounds. For all that, it is quintessentially Vangelis; relaxing and familiar.

As I type that we tick over and Nerve Centre starts up with exaggerated 80s sounds. I think of  latter-day Pink Floyd as a reference (A Momentary Lapse of Reason era). I also think of Beverley Hills Cop and the fact that this could easily be overlaid on cheesy montage / scene setting sequences in that style of film. Dated. Very, very dated. In some ways it feels as though it would have been dated even before it released. It does, however, for the first time reflect a busier theme, and for all the cheese I don't find it forcing me away; a knowing wry look instead. Opening a track with a motorcycle engine, before settling into a tune structure that evokes 1492 quite strongly is interesting. Obviously this album came first, but I find the similarities between this - ostensibly an urban theme - and that soundtrack for a historical ocean and jungle epic to be surprising. the Blade Runner reference makes sense in context, over-built urban visuals and sounds you would expect to go together, but the flash-forward to 1492 is more incongruous.

For all that the heavy synth sound dates badly, for all that it is hard not to hear the cheese when applying a more modern ear, I still find these tunes very comforting. I don't know if that reflects nostalgia or the craft of the artist. I suspect a little of both. There are musical themes running through here that are so familiar and reliable.

On Good to See You there is the conceit of hearing one half of a conversation, a distant, somewhat muffled female voice talking over a soft theme. It works well enough to break up the monotony of the lower register structural loops, but I find I preferred it when a sax line was used for the same purpose. We are then dropped into the territory of exoticism - a different language to the spoken vocal, and sounds that hint at Asia, a decade on from China. Vangelis is rarely a quick tempo composer, but Twilight is glacially paced. Its soft tones have a sort of swirling wind sound beneath them, faint but effective. This helps call back to another Vangelis album for me, Antarctica, though more because of my associations with the place / word than for any conscious picking up of re-use of musical themes.

My first real disconnect with the compositions comes with Red Lights, which... well, I am not sure what he was aiming at here. The combination of the title, the style, the female voices (no language I can recognise) just jar me out of things. Thankfully it is over quite quickly, and we hit the final number. More sense of where he was to end up on 1492 here. I don't really have much else to add as I find the tune rather nondescript... not because it is bad but little stands out as worthy of particular attention. It is long, giving the structure a long time to bed in, lots of opportunities to vary what happens over the top of that structure, and... lots of run to be a very typical Vangelis track.

It closes by harking back to the beginning - the footsteps and speech from the first two tracks are appended to the closing of the last, and the final sounds we hear are distant sirens muffled into a fade out. There is very little here that feels unique, little to make this album stand out from Vangelis' other works;I find myself OK with that, and I can only put that particular statement down to the nostalgia.

The Cinematic Orchestra Presents: In Motion #1 - Various Artists

Track list:

1. Necrology - The Cinematic Orchestra
2. Lapis - Austin Peralta
3. Outer Space - Dorian Concept & Tom Chant
4. Dream Work - Dorian Concept & Tom Chant
5. Entr'acte - The Cinematic Orchestra
6. Regen- Gary Reverend
7. Manhatta - The Cinematic Orchestra

Running time: 79 minutes
Released: 2012

I love The Cinematic Orchestra. There is something about their style of modern jazz that clicks for me. I am not sure that this will exemplify that though, as it is not really a Cinematic Orchestra album - a greater number of the tracks are contributed by others. I don't remember this one at all really, so it's a step into the unknown a little.

This is a collection of 7 long pieces, soundtracks to short films I think. The opening track is the shortest at over 8 minutes, so I anticipate plenty of time to reflect over the next hour and a half. There are 4 tracks in the middle by invitees, but the album is bookended by the Cinematics. Necrology gets us underway with an assertive rhythm-led piece, keys sparkling above it, light touch space forming around it. As we hit the halfway mark there is a more fully formed melody that shares the track with the drum riff, when suddenly both drop out giving a pause for breath, a sense of wonder and reverence. When the tune picks up again, the drum influence is gone for a while; it rejoins, softer than before, still central, but not as dominant.

I have to say, I rather like it. It doesn't have the same instinctive appeal as the works that drew me to The Cinematic Orchestra in the first instance, but it is very much enjoyable.

Austin Peralta's piece, Lapis, is more strings and classical forms. My initial impressions are so-so. Nice enough but not compelling. That feeling persists 3 minutes in, and whilst the track starts to grow it isn't stirring any great emotion in me as I sit with my breakfast and (decaf) coffee. The first point the tune really grabs my attention is 2/3rds of the way through, it goes still, sparse; every note more important for that. Alas, it is dealing with really high ranges, at which I find the strings more of a screech than a pleasant sound. The overall effect of the piece is pastoral. Whilst those straining high notes introduce a tension to it, that tension is quickly sliced through and comes at the expense of me being thrown out of whatever picture I conjured to the tune prior. From there, we head into space...

My first thoughts about this first of two contributions from composers Dorian Concept and Tom Chant are... well, it doesn't really sound that space-like. Devoid a visual to accompany, this feels decidedly less space-like than, say, Mogwai's Atomic does, to pick something I had cause to listen to part of recently. The disconnect between the title and the actual tune grows wider when a horn pipes up and takes centre-stage. Despite that, I find that the tune is sliding by quite fast, certainly not dragging or feeling unwelcome. Unfortunately I miss the rest of the track as I find that I need to fiddle with my bike lights, charging by USB, as I will be cycling later. Bloody USB splitter was only directing any power to one of them, so I had to play about, unplug my mouse and get them both charging that way. Ugh.

Ironically, Dream Work has plenty of the spacey sounds that Outer Space was lacking, an effect conveyed by soft electronic edges to many of the sounds, and a lot more room to breathe around the major themes. For all that, I don't find myself enchanted by it, there are hard edges to a lot of the sounds - the horns in particular - and it is a touch disjointed for me. It feels like the roomy sounds, smooth strings and the staccato horns are all from different compositions that just happen to be overlaid and playing concurrently. This track does feel like it is dragging by the time it starts to wrap up, to be replaced by a 20 minute epic from the Cinematics. I am grateful for the shift.

The opening of Entr'acte is very soft, quiet and understated. When the sound does rise, it is clear that whilst The Cinematic Orchestra might be the artist credit, this is not in the same vein as most of their work. The long drawn out string notes are nice, the sense of space is very much in keeping with their other work, but this is not a lush jazzy sound. This is a mood piece more reminiscent of a Vangelis or a Sigur Rós; I find myself thinking of Soil Festivities in some places, and the general feel of the Icelandic group's quieter tracks at others.

About 6 and a half minutes in there is a shift in tone, it gets a little darker and more tense. That feeling is intensified as we get a creeping bass sound, which is then overlaid by a sort of shredded pulse sound that I cannot work out. Sounds build around this unsettling centre and it swells until we hit a clear call of a note. Then silence. A piano - a melody like To Build a Home from Ma Fleur. Stirring, beautiful. This sits in the middle of the piece, a clear shift from what went before. I don't think this is really one piece in any real sense. The silences between movements belie that. The melody grows into something only to then immediately die out and shrink back. Strings come to swell the overall sound, but at the same time restore that love of the note unplayed, which seems to be a feature of Cinematics compositions.

This time we get a nice crescendo, a real sense of something building up, a subtle groove to the tune, jazz drumming under the classical swell. Oh yes. The top end gives out to frenetic strings as the drums grow in volume and pace. Those strings open out into more beautiful long notes, contrasting with the tight, breathy drums. The latter half of this piece has been top notch... as I say that we hit a snag in the last couple of minutes, as it turns into a twee little ramble then ends on a dark discord. All a little out of place. That detracts from the brilliance of minutes 12-18 in an unfortunate way, but cannot spoil my overall impression of the piece.

Two to go, and another 20 minutes. The Grey Reverend track, Regen, is also credited as a J. Swinscoe (the driving force behind the Cinematics) composition in my file metadata but I have no idea whether this is true. Googling Grey Reverend shows him to be another Ninja Tune artist, a collaborator with The Cinematic Orchestra, and a guitarist. That makes sense as the centrepiece of Regen is a guitar melody which acts as the frame to hang some emotional strings from. The tune meanders along pleasantly but unremarkably, then drops dead at around 7 minutes. It starts again very different, again re-enforcing the idea that these aren't really single tracks. The guitar is sharper, crisper, in this new tune, it stands more or less alone this time, there are other sounds there but they are distinctly second-fiddle and subservient. It is gentle, a stroll, though there seem to be the odd stray notes here and there that make it less comforting than I feel it should be. I don't dislike this piece at all, but at the same time I find it hard to really like, too.

The final piece, back in the hands of the Cinematic Orchestra, is very much movie-music. You feel like the track title is missing the final n, but the piece reflects nothing of Manhattan to me (though I've only been there the once; what do I know) so I wonder if that is meant to be an association we draw or not. The tune is nice, if not enthralling, but I have to admit I find my attention wandering. This has been a long listen and whilst it has been primarily positive, much of it is not the kind of thing you really get into, you know? The tracks are too long for that, and they are cut adrift a little without the visuals they were meant to accompany. As such I feel a tinge of gladness as the final refrains kick in then die down. There is a time and a place for these tunes, and I don't really feel that that is one after the other like this.

China - Vangelis

Track list:

1. Chung Kuo
2. The Long March
3. The Dragon
4. The Plum Blossom
5. The Tao of Love
6. The Little Fete
7. Yin & Yang
8. Himalaya
9. Summit

Running time: 41 minutes
Released: 1979

Time for some music older than I am. At some point in the early/mid 2000s I decided to buy up a load of Vangelis albums to explore his work further. I had always loved the Blade Runner soundtrack, and had some things beyond that already, but acquired to fill in gaps. I don't recall ever spending much time or attention on the things I picked up though. China was one of these.

The opening sounds remind me not of Asia, but of helicopters and dystopian sci-fi or cyberpunk. That feeling is enforced further by the tinny electronic notes that carry the first semblance of tune. I rather like the dated darkness, very much of a kind with the Blade Runner score. I suspect this is not going to last as a theme throughout the disc but we'll see. A more recognisible oriental influence is not far behind this opening salvo - whilst still flavoured by our artist's penchant for synths, the patterns are instantly calling the region to mind. Stereotypical sounds, able to be thus because they are, presumably based on enough genuine material to take root.

My player categorises this as "New Age"; how quaint. I get it, but really? Hippy-ish? Akin to crystal healing and tie-dye?  OK, so now it is me being unfair with stereotype. Deliberately and to make that point.

As an aside, it occurs to me that Blade Runner is probably now the most oft-referenced post that I have made or have to make at this stage. I wouldn't be surprised if it remains so at the point I either finish, or more likely give up on, this endeavor.

After a pleasing predominantly keyboard piece we get a more urgent, insistent number, synth pulses evoking lasers, quick tight repeating notes bringing a tension, and a high pitched bell-like sounding of an alarm. I suppose it could represent the dangers of a dragon, but it doesn't evoke that very strongly in my view. Oddly the vision I get is some garish, epileptic-fit-inducing intro sequence to an anime show. But that is just me being mean with caricature and stereotype again. On the record, we get back to some more typical sounds, but they morph into a weird cross between synth prog-rock and a curtailed (I initially typed castrated for some reason) loop cut from a western classical composition.

It bears saying that most of these pieces are short, skipping by quickly and easily. There is one 10 minute plus epic on here, but only 2 more are over 5 minutes and there are a few below three. This makes the New Age tag even less of a genuine thing for me. This isn't pretentious and overlong, it isn't all out there, they are shorter, more purposeful compositions. Sure they have an odd tint to them with the waw and the synthesised sounds but they have a heart and soul, too. I am finding them rather enjoyable, though the sudden voice interposing itself over The Little Fete feels out of place and unwelcome. It is in English, spoken with a strong accent. It doesn't destroy the beauty of the simple background arrangement but it does rather dampen my enjoyment of the piece until I adjust to it a few sentences later.

There is a nice twang to the bassy sounds in Yin & Yang which follows, at least initially. I think I see the point, the aim, of the album in this tune. Reverence to an idea, but whilst still fundamentally producing a Vangelis record, marrying up the influences of Chinese composition to the synth wizardry and electronic sensibilities of the composer. Somewhere in there I lost my attention for a second, reading banning notices (other people's not mine) on a webforum. Silly me. Not what I am here for. In the meantime the epic has started, Himalaya.

It sounds like this will have a slow build, I hope that it delivers a climax somewhere, because there is nothing (well, not very much) more frustrating than a long piece with time to build that settles instead for an elongated and unfulfilled tension instead. The early exchanges remind me of 1492: Conquest of Paradise though committed to record a decade and more earlier. It rumbles along with a steady rhythmic structure, a dark overall tone and top end themes that fade in and out. The most piano-like of them is actually really nice, but some of the other layers up there I am less keen on. Almost 7 minutes in, and I do not feel that it is building. This is no crescendo, alas. The music is pleasant enough, and as I start to type something about it stagnating, some louder, more Blade Runner-esque electronics cut in. It's great that they arrived, but it was a little sudden, rather than building organically to the volume and focus. They go again pretty quickly.

I think that last paragraph pretty much works as a generalisation of the composite Vangelis record from my perspective. A lot of good or nice elements, overall very pleasant, but ultimately frustrating in a number of cases - content to meander along, and light on lasting impact. Blade Runner is a notable exception in this, and I think on balance that is down to the fact we have visuals to pair it with - visuals that can be called to mind when hearing the soundtrack again. If that sounds like I am being down on things... well, no. I rather like what I have heard over the last 40 minutes. I just also feel pangs of disappointment that these compositions didn't quite deliver a lasting impression as strong as they might have done.

Atmosphères (Disc 1) - Tigran Hamasyan, Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Jan Bang

Track list:

1. Traces I
2. Tsirani Tsar
3. Traces II
4. Traces III
5. Traces IV
6. Traces V / Garun A
7. Traces VI
8. Garun A (Variation)

Running time: 49 minutes
Released: 2016

Left-field purchase time. Well, sort of. I have a fair bit of Scandinavian jazz music kicking about and I was familiar with Avre Henriksen, which is why this caught my eye when browsing Amazon recently. The blurb made this work sound particularly interesting - based around Armenian folk patterns, courtesy of the pianist, which could be a nice blend. First listen.

The thing I immediately notice is the names of the tracks. Everything is Traces, except tunes that are directly handed down from Armenian musician Komitas. I guess the others are "traces" of his work too, to some degree, giving the album its theme. Most of them are short - a touch over pop song length, not what I might have expected going in - but Traces V makes up for that, running to 12 minutes.

The opening bars are quiet. There is a humming, slow oscillating bass and then a light-touch piano starts up. It is all very chilled, very zen. Very discreet background music for quiet moments. You couldn't listen to this whilst out and about, or whilst driving, because you just wouldn't hear it over the intrusions of the wider world. Its soft enough listening to it in my front room with just a hint of traffic noise from wet roads coming in from outside. I like the gentleness of it, though it would perhaps be better for late night relaxation than early evening study. The piece remains all about the keys and that thrum, though another focal point is added towards the end of the piece; the trumpet hardly makes an audible appearance, and I believe that one of the others is a guitarist and there is little concrete trace of them either.

There is a real charm about the way Hamasyan caresses the keys of his piano. He has a soft touch, a wandering hand that reminds me of the joys of simply letting your hands wander over keys with no real forethought of what might come up. The piano is most noticeable in the higher registers, which adds to this lazy improvisational impression - even as he is playing one of the composed pieces. Here, Henriksen's trumpet is the main accompaniment, taking up a significant part of the melody. Again there is a low-level brooding in the background sounds; it reminds me a little of Vangelis', specifically some of the Blade Runner soundtrack in places - coming back to how little melodies drift in and out over a slightly brooding background. Do like.

Suddenly all is a blur of motion, rapid hands running all over the keyboard. That is quite a departure in tone, nothing like as soothing as what has gone before. The hubbub dies down a little at the Traces continue, but it has introduced a more frenetic, more urgent sound and feeling to the work. That energy persists even as the piece is muted, low amplitude, in the vein of what came before. This second Trace stands alone in its urgency though, as that impetus and energy is absent again once the track ticks over. On the one hand I now miss it; on the other the piano part is so darn nice that whilst I find the slow tempo, quietude, and generally subdued nature of the pieces soporific, I also find the music enchanting and enticing.

The quiet nature of the pieces does seem to encourage distraction though in the context of this exercise. If I were sat back, not recording my thoughts, I could close my eyes and concentrate on the low key wonder, the spaces in and around the melodies in these tracks. Having to be upright, alert and typing though, the sparse nature of the work finds me falling into sinkholes - spaces in the music becoming spaces in my thought as my concentration wavers from my task. I have said before that these posts are not reviews, and I am not a critic; I find it hard to put the right words on this work. My wavering attention is absolutely not a bad sign, not correlated to my appreciation. This is a special kind of disc... it is so much of a light touch that sometimes you may lose track of it, but every trace you find and catch is amazingly well executed that despite the tendency to want a little more to latch on to it draws you in, right up until the point where the sound drops so soft that you lose track again.

I have hit the long number and for the first time some dissent. The way is opens (hah! It is 3 minutes in by the time I am typing this) is less enveloping, less magical. I couldn't close my eyes and drift on this in the way that I could with what has come before.

I find myself wondering where music like this fits in the modern world; the pieces espouse quiet, calm and solitude and it really takes an effort to create the right space to listen to such things. Time and effort I don't imagine most people can or will make. Hell, were it not for this project I doubt I would ever get to enjoy this... I would have bought it, then skipped every track on a shuffle for being too quiet, too demanding to listen to in the same way that I consume the majority of my music. And that is a real shame. I am less than half way through Atmosphères (given there is a second disc to come) but it is leaving quite an impression. It is properly an album, not a collection of tunes, and it demands to be consumed as such. Were its pieces surrounded by tonally dissonant works, these are the ones that would suffer more for it. And for all that I am loving these tunes, I doubt seriously that I will ever enjoy them quite the same way, or as much, again. One and done, despite falling in love with it. That thought makes me sad, but the realities of keeping this project moving - of finding the time to the things I have decided for myself I will listen to - have proved difficult enough in busy times.

Mood, killed.

Trace 6 is disappointing. Like the one earlier that had unexpected energy, this is at odds with the overall tone of the record. Unlike that one, this does not seem to have much else to recommend it instead. It is a more piecemeal effort, with the musicians coming across less in sync, and the piano, which I have particularly loved, relegated to a bit part/supporting role. It just falls a little flat, though part of that may be my self-induced buzzkill. Thankfully the final piece - another Komitas-penned tune - ends this first half on a more representative and enjoyable note, with the piano and trumpet weaving around each other nicely.

I have no words left, find myself at a loss to adequately describe the nature of the sounds. I am left with the nagging doubt that progress isn't always such, and that the pace of modern life does much to zone out work like this, to our detriment.

Broadchurch O.S.T - Ólafur Arnalds

Track list:

1. Main Theme
2. Danny
3. The Journey
4. So Close
5. Suspects
6. What Did They Ask You?
7. She's Your Mother
8. Excavating The Past
9. The Meeting
10. Broken
11. I'm Not The Guilty One
12. So Far
13. Beth's Theme

Running time: 52 minutes
Released: 2015

From a videogame soundtrack to a TV show one. This was meant to be next cab on the rank a long while back, but a raft of purchases that all fell before it alphabetically, and a low output rate of late, have delayed it several weeks.

I hear Broadchurch - season 1 anyway - was good TV. I wouldn't know as I didn't catch any of it and have never felt like going back to do so. However when I saw that the soundtrack music had been composed by Ólafur Arnalds I picked it up despite my unfamiliarity with the series. I like Arnalds' style. I expect this to be a little bitty without knowledge of the visuals it was to accompany but hope that it will be stirringly good stuff all the same.

The Main Theme starts darkly, distantly. A low rumbling sound may be approximating waves. Then a spooky, isolated but simple melody arrives and takes centre stage. I think the addition of the strings, giving depth to the bleakness, raises the theme another level as the percussion picks up a pace. This is the kind of atmospheric that I wanted to feel from The Banner Saga soundtrack last time out... a different atmosphere, of course - English mystery vs. Nordic fantasy - but a complete theme. I suppose as such it speaks to the fundamentally different nature of soundtracking the two media. TV (and film) tend to get longer themes that may not be used in their entirety but are composed as such. Videogames get made-to-measure pieces that fit exactly to a specific use, and likely made to loop in case the player takes too long.

I guess that Danny was the kid that died/went missing/provoked the central mystery of the show. I could guess that from the name alone, but the tune that bears the name also suggests this quite strongly. There is an inorganic edge to the sound here that typifies Arnalds' playing with less traditional elements, but the composition is very classic soundtrack in tone. I am left suspecting that the show was about loneliness, key people being driven apart by events and their responses to them, because there is something in the music here that breeds a sense of isolation, of being cut off. When the more modern, almost Vangelis-style futuristic, sounds appear in The Journey I think it was better before they did, but at the same time they are not entirely out of place. The composer is walking a fine line there, his inclination to modernise competing a little against the sense of place the tune was composed to evoke. This is a long theme though, and the latter stages of it have a tension and conflict to them. It reminds me a little in places of several different composers or musicians in passing, in snippets too short for me to identify and name them all.

I have often said I don't like crime fiction... police TV shows. It's one of the reasons I steered clear of Broadchurch when it aired (well, that and ITV). But that is a lie; I have lapped up Line of Duty (a soundtrack I want to get, if only for the main theme) on the BBC over three series and 4 years, for example. I think what I dislike is "villain of the week" shows, one and done crimes (always murder, because drama). Serialise it, give room for the characters to shine and suffer and suddenly it becomes a backdrop like any other subject. I think I probably should go back and watch this one, because I suspect it does what I would want it to.

So close is a song, with vocals. Was not expecting that. I find I don't think much of it, either... it rather flows past me without making an impression. Suspects is a dark, tense affair to follow it, but one that opens out into a nice melody and pacing structure (albeit of a form so generic to TV scores that it hurts). There is definitely something very common about the form this composition takes, right down to the sudden end to the piece. It works, because it is incredibly evocative. It also doesn't work absent the visual media because it's a trope that is so over-used. I know, I should name other instances to back that up, and no, I can't off the top of my head. All I can say is that I am sure I have heard the same conceits used a hundred times on TV and film, and that I think that as a composition Suspects suffers without recourse to the visuals.

A couple of terse, tense numbers pass by, erasing the memory of the overused trope by drowning me in the murky uncertainties. I don't know if this is biased by enjoying this disc more, but here the shorter pieces feel more rounded and complete, more tonally consistent and more like a tune in their own right than even the longer numbers on The Banner Saga soundtrack managed to. I really don't like disparaging that soundtrack so much, because I don't think that in context it was bad at all, so let me say instead that Arnalds clearly knows how to craft accompaniments that can stand alone. I think perhaps with TV we are all so familiar with the tropes and mores that it is easier to play upon them and for us to identify and relate to them without the specific context that the composer is working to, but certainly this is much more accessible. So much so that I feel like I have heard much of it before simply because it trades on those familiarities. I can't really blame the composer for drifting into sounds that could come from a hundred different shows. Really so much of our TV explores the same themes, so why wouldn't the music for the show follow suit? The soundtrack's job is to support and enhance the visuals and there is probably a reason the sort of dark-light shifts, driving strings, and wide lens feel have become staples in the first place.

I feel like I am tarring this undeservedly, so let me say that I am enjoying this quite a lot. It is making me think of things beyond the scope of the single album though, and I find it much easier to connect these sounds to soundtracks aplenty by other musicians than I do to reference Arnalds' other work. Just because something is familiar - or popular, come to that - does not mean it lacks artistic merit. Rather than seeing a slight on the present, see a nod to the masses.

I really like the strings on Broken. There's a lovely light touch to this piece which, whilst carrying a sad tune and quite clearly not accompanying an upbeat moment, gives a sense of relief... exactly the sort of thing I was crying out for in yesterday's listen. You would expect a tune with the title "I'm Not the Guilty One" to be difficult listening, and it is. I don't find it as overtly accusatory as the title itself, but it is not a pleasant tune, edginess abundant. One element that is used a lot in soundtracking it seems is the repeated note as pacing mechanism. A single sound hit over and over to give structure and tempo, the strength of the sound dictating  the urgency of the piece. So Far uses this, and it makes me think again of Vangelis though I can't bring a particular piece or even album to reference.

On to the last. Beth's Theme starts as a lonely, light piano. It feels like a classic resolution, a sober end. Gods, when he does this I love Ólafur Arnalds... so much emotion in such a simple package. I can feel myself getting goosebumps on what has been the warmest day of the year to date - simply amazing. I can only imagine how powerful this could be with a conclusive scene to sit alongside. It ends rather meekly, but such tender tunes rarely blow out hot. I find myself thinking I really should see what the fuss was about on some form where I can avoid any ads.

Atomic - Mogwai

Track list:

1. Ether
2. SCRAM
3. Bitterness Centrifuge
4. U-235
5. Pripyat
6. Weak Force
7. Little Boy
8. Are You a Dancer?
9. Tzar
10. Fat Man

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2016

Is this my first 2016 release? I think so. It's not the first album I've picked up this year but its the first that appears here due to alphabet. This is also my first listen to this as I have yet to own it a week. One song popped up in a shuffle but I've not yet paid the purchase any heed.

First listens rarely offer best value, but I'll head into this one, as I don't yet feel like making dinner. Ether starts rather remotely, not what I would expect from Mogwai, a drone and tinny electronics over it. I guess style has to mix up for soundtracks though, and it is plenty accessible. There are echoes of Vangelis in this first piece as the softly melodic theme arrives, the backing evokes the same sculpted spaces the Greek manufactured for scores such as 1492 or Antarctica. As the piece builds there is a little more evidence of the guitar-based instrumentals that Mogwai are known for, but it never departs from the original course enough to indulge those elements.

The film this soundtracks was apparently an Auntie documentary on the atomic age. Passed me by entirely, but explains the title. I think it is safe to say by the midpoint of SCRAM that this is not a work that I would recognise as Mogwai if I didn't know it was them. It fits into a black hole of a genre of thematic instrumental music... pretty clearly soundtrack material without being easily definable as anything else. I find it loopy, with little hooks to fall into. Patterns take over and run my mind as I fall, trance-like, under its spell. To call the themes dark would be to sell short the night. It isn't insufferably dark though, just predominantly. I have to say I think Bitterness Centrifuge would make a great band name; its a pretty awesome track title and I find it conjuring pictures of emotional chemistry labs. Dystopian future, anyone? This track is slower, more menacing in pace, fuzzy, unclear. Deliberately so, and with a number of different strands competing for attention as lighter top end lines arrive to brighten the overall mood of the tune. I could see this growing on me quite a lot.

U-235 may relate to something of the here and now, but the edgy staccato of the tune definitely has me thinking megacorps and rain, persecution and cyberware. This is dark future RPG music and could just as easily be soundtracking an after-dark incursion into a guarded warehouse looking for some secret and dangerous new technology. Very apt. Pripyat is the number that I have heard once before and it starts now, foreboding in tone, slightly Gothic feel to it. This goes from cyberpunk to sci-fi, and then back. The overwhelming feel of oppression ebbs and flows through this track based on what the primary electric "tune" is doing. A murderous hum around just about every sound on this record would drive you to distraction were it not so clear that it is intentional. A nice light evening does not really suit this, but there we are.

Weak Force has more in common with Mogwai's non-soundtrack work immediately. A much clearer sound and electronics following a pattern which suits them. It is lacking in bold guitars though so it probably wouldn't stand out as a Mogwai track in a shuffle. The piece is possibly the "nicest" so far, but it is also the dullest. The dirty air, drones and other artefacts that cloud the previous tunes are noticeable by their absence, and that absence is to the detriment of the track. It leaves fewer rabbit holes for the ear to draw you down, creates fewer images in my head as I listen. I find myself bouncing off the cleaner sound quite hard, it is out of place, not suited. The opening to Little Boy is much more promising. This has a nice clean melody, but a droning sound is back to frame it, and there is another guitar line layered in there. This is richer, lusher, easier to connect to. The melody is one of loneliness, something I have felt today... its been an odd one. The changeable weather - first bright, then wet, and with the wet a darkness that belies the time of day - has directly impacted my mood, as has my inability to get anything done since 11ish. The morning was great; the afternoon not so much, yet I have had "leisure time" and talked to friends during that time. I find myself too complex and it blights certain aspects of my life. Ho hum.

A more subdued track next, more loneliness, a contrast begging me to close my eyes and risk falling asleep at an inopportune time of day. I don't feel like the album jumped here suddenly, and yet neither did I really have any expectation of, nor notice, it turning to these understated slow and emptier tunes. I rather like the effect, but I suspect that whilst the growling, droning tracks might grow on me, these removed numbers will likely never be better than they are on first exposure - less intricacies to learn perhaps? 

Do you ever think you are drinking too much? I have that feeling all the time, and yet this week as many days have passed with me taking none than taking any, and if any just a single beer. I constantly worry I might be prone to alcoholism and yet only ever indulge in moderation. Just throwing that out there, as Tzar winds down and we approach the finale, Fat Man. Lost and lonely piano melody wandering. It is left I think a little too long without significant company. When it gets companion sounds to wrap itself in and co-exist with the piece comes alive in a very... human kind of way. Alas I find that most of it is just a bit too slow, a bit too sparse, to hold my interest.

I think a second, and third, listen are in order to get the best out of this album - the same holds true for most, lets be honest. First time through, give me the dirty, fuzzy, busy sounds over the cleaner and clearer ones, though. 

Blade Runner Official Soundtrack - Vangelis

Track list:

1. Main Titles
2. Blush Response
3. Wait For Me
4. Rachel's Song
5. Love Theme
6. One More Kiss, Dear
7. Blade Runner Blues
8. Memories Of Green
9. Tales Of The Future
10. Damask Rose
11. Blade Runner (End Titles)
12. Tears In Rain

Running time: 57 minutes
Released: 1994

What to say about this? Blade Runner has been a favourite movie of mine since I first saw it (I don't really watch many films, mind), and Vangelis's iconic soundtrack is a major part of that. I am surprised at the release date of 1994, but a quick Google suggests that the soundtrack released along with the film in 1982 was not this one.

The Main Titles is overlaid by Deckard's search for the animal scale, then you get the sparkly breaker, the tinny shimmer and then the long drawn out synth notes. Far more hopeful than the depressing rain-soaked city-scape they accompany, but certainly infused (if only by association) with that sense of wonder and weirdness. I have been playing Cities: Skylines recently, and could imagine playing along to this whilst building a high rise district.

Blush Response has the dialogue from when Deckard first meets Rachel. Voight-Kampf for short and all that. When the speech fades that electric melody kicks in and shivers go up my spine. It really is quite astounding how well this holds up 30 years on. It is on the one hand so incredibly dated - the synths are very very eighties - but on the other utterly timeless. The percussive base could come out of modern electronica, snappy and tinged with darkness. The fact the movie is a classic (I almost added "cult" but that would be a disservice) that stands up in many ways certainly helps keep the soundtrack feeling fresh rather than tied to its time. I am less than wild about how the track ends and fades over into Wait For Me, but once the transition is complete the new track is a gorgeous change of tone. Softer and gentler - it is pretty much the quintessential Vangelis track. It could come from 1492, or Voices or any number of his releases if it wasn't part of this one. Solid central theme, loose movements around it, layers of synths with hidden depths - its easy to overlook the horns here in places, for instance. Its just wonderfully peaceful. 

I am surprised and disappointed by how few of the tracks I can recall musically from title alone. Rachel's Song drew a complete blank for me even after it started, until the voice enters the fray. Used as instrument not as lyrical conduit it has a haunting effect. The track as a whole is mournful, slow and emotional. I don't recall its usage. I am suddenly feeling lonely. It has absolutely nothing to do with the painfully isolated saxophone on Love Theme at all, no. I suppose if I squint I can see this being a soft and loving piece, but it feels more paean to lost love than a celebration of an existing one. When the sax fades away the sparse and starry feel of the theme continues that lonely sense, the notes twinkling like in a big open night sky before a spooky edge emerges to add tension. Love is about the furthest thing in my visceral response to the track. But there is tenderness there, hence the see it if I squint, and I suppose it plays to sleazy late night bars post-closing in 40s-50s, a couple sat along at the bar or in a booth in a closed club. A stretch though.

I have always loved One More Kiss. The wandering piano, the pedestrian strumming, the slightly-too-high feel to the singing of this song just create a lovely if crumbling image of a utopia out of reach. It is incredibly fitting in more ways than one.

It is replaced by Blade Runner Blues. Musically this has very little in common with Blues. It is very blue though... plaintive (a word I feel I probably overuse in these posts, but one I rather like) to the point of making my hairs stand on end, slowing down the evening which has passed far too quickly, and without me having any proper food. Too late to think of that now, though... and I have the wonders of working long to look forward to tomorrow too. Yay. The piece of music is an interesting ramble, perhaps most reminiscent of Soil Festivities amongst Vangelis' other works. I find it hard to listen to and concentrate on too much, better as background music, and yet almost 9 minutes pass without a dull moment. Quite something. It smoothly transitions into another sad piece, the doleful (I looked up synonyms for plaintive, alright!) tone of these tunes complementing the tumbledown, shabby city whose images they belong with, a pairing that is further enhanced by the whirring and beeping sounds.

I had forgotten just how dark some of this album is. There is nothing peaceful about Tales of the Future, an echoing, modulated vocal almost screeching out with the effect of nails on a chalkboard. This turns what would be an atmospheric but forgettable backing track into an electric but threatening number. I have no idea what is being said, if anything and so it is just the harshness of the intonation that sticks with me.  The straining strings that begin Damask Rose are as potent now as they ever were. Along with the preceding track these two seem to cover the "ethnic" angle of life in the LA of 2019 that is depicted, but it is otherwise very weak in comparison with the rest of the disc.

I have, in the past, fallen asleep listening to these tracks, only to be jolted awake by the end titles. I don't say that to disparage it at all. They are anything but boring. Here again they jolt me. The fast pace is anathema to what has been before and the timpani have a sense of purpose that re-enforce that. The tone is so different to the rest of the soundtrack, but is perfectly suited to the situation at the end of the film with Deckard and Rachel to be on the run. It has a real tension to it which is not something you automatically associate with end titles, where in most cases things have been resolved away from the tense, for better or worse.

Rutger Hauer's classic monologue is an integral part to Tears in Rain, our final tune. I love the sparse melody behind his lines here and the unexpected strains of hope in the composition, at odds with almost all that went before. It is a quiet ending, a postscript really, but it is an affirmative one that changes the take-away emotion from the listen quite dramatically. The running order looks off at first, to have the end titles not close the soundtrack, but it is an inspired choice, and precisely the kind of small detail that makes you want to hear the thing again almost straight away. I really like this disc.

The Barometric Sun - Deepspace

Track list:

1. Hymn 1 (Through the Barometric Sun)
2. The First Glimpse of the.....
4. Crysanthenum Ocean
5. In the Outer Reaches
7. Endless Glass Metropolis
10. Silence
11. Dream (The 49th Sheep)

Running time: 48 minutes
Released: 2007

A quick follow-up to The Barometric Sea, I can only guess that The Barometric Sun was meant as a companion piece, especially as it was within a year. I have 7 tracks from this disc. 5 are free right now, and 2 must have been in the past.

It has been a busy week, so I haven't got to many of these. Out Monday, guests Tuesday, unexpected co-op with a friend on Wednesday and my weekly Blood Bowl game on Friday. I did squeeze in a post on Thursday though. Today was a family birthday so it has been tough to find time to just sit and listen until now when I have that chance. It is late(ish) on a Saturday evening and I have just watched something about rebuilding a Spitfire - I am suitably relaxed.

The first impression generated by Hymn 1 is good. There is more body to this than some of the other Deepspace pieces I have on file and that is appreciated. It is still a soundscape, still inherently lonely, but the depth adds warmth to that so it is not so stark and distant as I felt some of The Barometric Sea was. Less ice floes, more beach or valley flooded with morning light. Some chimes kick in near the end that remind me of those of Big Ben which is an odd juxtaposition, and then we move on to a first glimpse of something. Here the artist proves that, like my younger self, one can be careless when typing an ellipsis. I swear I always used to end up with four periods, here he uses five. The track itself carries on the theme. It felt like a return to emptier sounds for a brief moment, then the additional embellishments showed up, including sampled (?) voice - choral singing by the sound of it. This definitely evokes Vangelis with the atmosphere created totally in line with the Blade Runner aesthetic. The song feels like it goes on forever, but it is actually shorter than the first track. I suspect that means that under the general appeal of the image it creates there is not too much to sustain affection. In any case, I am glad when we move on.

Crysanthenum Ocean - oops, looks like that is a typo in the title - feels like sci-fi videogame music from a downtime cutscene or, more likely, a front-end menu. It seems to fall into a cyclic pattern that fails to enthral. The warmer tone is still present but the ambience of this one is flat for me. What follows is more bombast than I would have expected, louder and stronger notes than have been stock-in-trade until now. This is a nice change, with the intricacies introduced in the fades, the lulls. I realise that I use "swells" a lot in writing - but perhaps I do genuinely see music as waves, building and crashing, rippling and calming. It feels truly appropriate here as there is the sense of a crescendo then a diminuendo on each tonic shift. It creates a really comforting sound space, an aural pocket of calm, a rhythmic effect of relaxation. I like this a lot, right up to the point where it seems to dead-end very suddenly. That ending was a shocker.

LastFM has b*****ed itself up again - it seems to do this if I remove a track from my library whilst it is in an active playlist - and thinks I am hearing Silence when actually it is Endless Glass Metropolis. Too bad, I was going to tag the title for its awesomeness. I would not want to live in a city of glass, but the image that generates is certainly one in keeping with the future/sci-fi ideal, supported by the sounds crafted here. I should really pass on these tracks to the gamers I know who love sci-fi RPGs, I think they would get far more atmospheric use of them than I would as I have never been particularly drawn to that genre (as a whole). Actually, I'll be fair on LastFM, looking more closely it seems to be picking up the problem from WMP giving bad information. You might have thought that the player would load the info of the track when the track starts, not somehow manage to display the info for another track altogether because it pre-loaded it then somehow skipped in the playlist. Actually I would have thought that, until I started working in software design by accident and optimisation (and some methods to achieve it) became a relevant concern. Still, it is an error.

Silence is not, well, silent. It is certainly emptier than the other tracks thus far but even then it contains some pretty bold notes. It feels slower rather than colder or less involving, no obvious rise-fall-rise-fall wave pattern here - more a sense of pulses through empty space. There are background transitions and a reverb effect that underlies most of the piece but they fade and merge together. We wake up from Silence and enter into a Dream. It does not immediately strike me as dream-like or particularly relevant to sleep though after a while it does pick up that sort of fuzzy, intangible quality that is alike the soft focus effect often used visually to depict dreams on screen. It also breaks down as a theme a bit by the halfway mark and feels like a different piece to the one I was listening to a moment ago. I do not really care for the switch initially either, but it pulls around. The second half of the piece then rushes by in a sense of swirls and twirls, to the point that when it ends I am abruptly catapulted out of whatever semi-conscious state my mind had fallen into.

Overall, I think this was better than The Barometric Sea, but less good than Another Empty Galaxy; I like the warmer sounds and appreciated the visuals my brain supplied on hearing it more than the cooler, isolation-based ones that accompanied the last post. I would not say Deepspace is genius, but he has something in these pieces alright that can really make for surprisingly engaging experience.

The Barometric Sea - Deepspace

Track list:

1. Energy Failure On The Sibelius
2. The Astrology
3. Sol
4. The Barometric Sea
5. Leaving The Hub
7. The Drop Of Nowhere
8. Euphandemonium
11. Map Of The Pleiades

Running time: 55 minutes
Released: 2007

A return to Deepspace, whose ambient track Another Empty Galaxy I rather enjoyed. This time it is more free tracks from a different album. Not an entire free disc this time, but most of one. I had 5 tracks already, 3 more were free which I have just grabbed, and a final 3 were not. I can guess this will be more ambient material but not at its themes.

Immediate electrics hum and give a deliberate (I would guess) sense of being underwater through an intangible oscillating quality that seems to slow everything down. It is quite an oppressive piece, atmospherically speaking and veers into discord in places. Energy Failure on the Sibelius is not winning me over, but I could see it being decent mood music for a deep-sea or deep-space adventure. There is a part of me that thinks I should be assigning tunes like this some metadata, or maybe just to a playlist, to take advantage of  actually listening and building a picture of them because thematic background music is a plus in at least one of my hobbies. I have to say though, I think I will stick with simply deleting it this time.

The Astrology is the first of the longer pieces (there are three around 10 minutes each), and it starts more promisingly but then fails to build on that. A haunting tone is all well and good but it does not play with it enough to create lasting interest. I got really into Another Empty Galaxy but somehow I am not feeling the same draw here. I don't know if the cold outside seeps in a bit with these vast empty sounds - this tune reminds me more of icy wastes than any other kind of land- (or sea-)scape. And as I commit that, something else is added to make it feel a little less empty. A mechanical kind of chugging bass loop. Maybe a caravan of some sort, slogging across the floes. Repetitive as it is, this loop really adds depth to the track and lifts is enough to make it work.

As it ends, I have a moment where everything is borked - I'm listening to one track but it is reporting and recording another; I do not know whether I am coming or going. So I sort it out by deleting the album and re-downloading everything except Sibelius and sort it out, listening to the end of The Astrology again as a result, but that's an acceptable enough price. Only the LastFM scrobbler does it again as Sol starts, recording it as The Astrology again. Some odd things have been happening recently; most Mawkin:Causley tracks were scrobbled twice during that listen a couple of weeks back. I'll put that aside though and go by the on-screen in WMP. Sol then. It is vaguely reminiscent of Vangelis in some respects and I approve.

Yup, every track now seems to be scrobbling as the one before it. Oh well. This is a lonely pursuit at the best of times, albeit one that through its engagement wards of loneliness, but tracks like this really emphasise the feeling. I can see this as being stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere, looking out over vast swathes of nothingness, a big empty sky above and no landmarks to guide. Bleak, that's the word. And yet there is a warmth of sorts to the music itself that undermines that sense, even as it creates it. Since the opening track, I have fallen in to rather enjoying this again. It does help that I can see other uses for it but there is enough here to be oddly fulfilling in its own right. Leaving the hub is suitably dark, trepidatious mood to it, that you could see it as a fearful step into the unknown. It reminds me a little of prog rock, with long-held chords transitioning from one to another, but this is stripped back not embellished so the comparison quickly falls down.

The tracks have definitely gone a little darker to my ear; The Drop of Nowhere is less interesting as a result. Perhaps my attention has wandered a little, but this track is more of a drone with not enough to lift it or provide gems that sparkle against the black backdrop. Euphandemonium (great title!) lifts things a bit, which is welcome, but only brief. The strains that gave it the lift fade fairly quickly then linger there just in the background a bit in a way that makes the track really not work for me. Then it is over, for this is a short song, and we are on to the final piece, the "bonus track" - this is also shorter and has more obvious instrumentation rather than the strict ambience of prior tracks. The sustained chord is a little wearing though and this will be joining a few of its disc-mates in my recycle bin. For the second time tonight, too!

All in all this was a hit and miss set of tracks with the middle better than either end. Another selection of Deepspace's freely available work, The Barometric Sun is next, unless I fiddle with the order.

Antarctica - Vangelis

Track list:

1. Theme From Antarctica
2. Antarctica Echoes
3. Kinematic
4. Song Of White
5. Life Of Antarctica
6. Memory Of Antarctica
7. Other Side Of Antarctica
8. Deliverance

Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 1983

Yet another soundtrack to a film I have not seen. I have predictions for what this will be like, based on the fact it is Vangelis (again), but no firm recollection of any of these themes.

The opening theme does not exactly conjure images of Antarctica to me; the notation is more  Blade Runner mixed with China - a blend of sci-fi-ish structure and oriental-sounding melody. The combination is interesting and actually quite effective despite sounding odd in description. It is properly thematic, in that it really does sound like a main theme (actually it reminds me a lot of the end credits to Blade Runner, which came the year before), something that belongs with moving images. Appropriate, then!

Antarctica Echoes reaches forward in time rather than back. As it opens I am immediately put in mind of Voices, an album Vangelis would not make for another 12 years. Future echoes, then... before Red Dwarf did them. This is a much more empty track, cavernous sounding, making me wonder if it was to accompany scenes in an ice cave. There is definitely a sense of loneliness about it, which is another expected element of life in a white waste. This was good lazy-Sunday listening until Kinematic throws a buzzsaw in the mix. Not literally, but it is much more agitated - as you might expect from the title. Its basis is a repeated flutter and momentary synth blast combination that I really do not get on with as a mood changer.

I am a little surprised by how many of the sounds here sound as if they could be accompanying a documentary on rural China; it is probably my unaccustomed ears picking up stereotyped similarities rather than a true reflection of incorrect influences being used, right? That is my suspicion, anyway. Song of White is in that vein and returns to the lazy lightness. Then I IMDB'd the film and realise that it is a Japanese film following Japanese protagonists; the oriental influence is less surprising in context.

Life of Antarctica is at odds with its title, or seems so. There is no real sense of life - instead it seems to carry threat, menace - darker tones in places. Memory... has what I think is call back to the main theme and is a lighter piece. I have been bad, and was distracting myself with G+ communities as I absorb these tunes - running against the intent of the project. I find purely instrumental pieces very easy to tune in and out of without realising, and to be honest I find it hard to write too much about this soundtrack that is not a retread of opinions on Vangelis stated previously. I like his composition, generally. I like everything I have heard on Antarctica except Kinematic. Its just that after a while of listening to similarly themed pieces if I am not 100% engaged then my mind switches off a little and I find it difficult to add anything interesting to discussion. The "other side" is definitely different; it is all tense and disconnected, brooding. It broke the spell a little, stopped me staring at the screen blankly and has coincided with (caused?) a chill that has entered my extremities. That is either really effective composition, or a coincidence with the air temperature dropping in here (without the heating on at midday). Or I have just been sat in one place too long and my feet are feeling the draft a bit more.

I have been waiting 40 minutes to make a bad banjo joke and now I cannot think of one. Deliverance as it is here, needless to say, does not involve that instrument. I am not sure whether it is just the fact I know it is the last track, or if the song itself is constructed to strongly give that impression, but it certainly feels like an ending rather than a beginning or a middle. There is a celebratory air, an uplift. It is a good close to the disc and to this rather sub-par post. I consider cutting Kinematic, and then do, because I found it intolerable. The rest, though, I liked - in that kind of disconnected way when you cannot fully follow something but find yourself feeling good about it anyway.

Another Empty Galaxy - Deepspace

Track list:

1. Another Empty Galaxy

Running time: 59 minutes
Released: 2008

So this is one long ambient track. I do not have a clue what got me to look at Deepspace and then grab all the freely available tunes on LastFM and I suspect that by the end of this project I may regret having picked them up. Pick them up I did, though, so now I have to find an hour to listen to this. If you are curious, the track can be found and downloaded here.

No big bang to start, but its a galaxy not a universe. This post could go a number of ways. I could get really into the spacey ambiance and go wild with descriptors. I could detest it and write a diatribe about the hour I am committing. I could simply zone out and make a really short entry. Its that latter I am betting on; not certain of my staying power for this. That said, I am in the right kind of mood for ambient relaxation - just come off the back of a Bloodbowl game where I won but lost 2 players to death, had to pay £160 to get some connectors replaced and repaired in my car, and had a busy day catching up on 7 days worth of missed email - and found that my tomorrow afternoon is a wall-to-wall teleconference. And to top it off, I missed (or rather could not pay adequate attention to) Only Connect. Bah, intellectual nourishment denied!

So I am in need of something soothing, and on that score at least I think I am on to a winner with this piece. Five minutes in, and the track is wide open. There is nothing really musical here a lot of the time, background hums, waves and sounds; layered to provide a sense of space and wonder. I am feeling the space, less so the wonder. There is certainly something to this composition as, now at 12 minutes, I am not bored yet. I am also not really paying full attention - I think that is virtually impossible without the shut down of other senses. I am half tempted to turn out the lights and lie back on the couch - how I imagine this track is best enjoyed - but if I did that I would likely fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night with a crook neck and fail to have an entry (so need to listen again).

The sounds are generally soothing. There is no drone - the longer notes are a more pleasant tone, and the resonance from them softens their impact rather than amplifying it, though on occasion it sounds like the note is about to lose tune. The waves and pulses of other sounds are generally soft, too and there are refreshingly few sparkles (you know, those electronic "star drop" sounds that one associates with the ambient cliché. There is no harmonic metals of the Vangelis kind, but flatter, emptier sounds that suit the vastness of space better. Deepspace gets the distance right - even when there are some bolder sounds, the tone of the background lends volume and everything feels further away, as if it is constantly receding (which it is, of course).

The track is approaching half way; my head is going slightly. Tiredness creeping in, eyes drooping. The track is having a positively reinforcing effect on that natural reaction to the end of a busy day. I have to admit to a little boredom, but I am resenting the time a lot less than I thought I might, and I can certainly see how listening to this in a more appropriate (and less live-logged) format could be mind blowing. There have been a few more falling stars, but they remain rare. The oscillating bass is the most consistent feature, a thrum to underlay all else, but around it things are in flux, the sounds that make for a tune, to provide the part that a melody might in more traditional music, are many and varied and I find it hard to describe any of them sufficiently. Bold one minute, soft the next. Clear now, then muted, or echoey or both. More stereotypical space creeps in more over the length of the tune - you would expect it to in a 60 minute marathon just to keep the change ups coming - but this is easily forgiveable as it is not overdone.

20 minutes to go now. It continues to provide a soothing aural skyscape, the bassy hum has lightened, ad there are more optimistic top end sounds arising. Ah, now that is interesting. There is a notable tonal shift at or about the 45 minute mark which makes me wonder if the piece is, consciously or subconsciously, divided up into movements even if it is presented as a single megalithic track. I cannot say I noticed the others (if they are there) but I happened to be checking how long was left as the clock went 45 and then the sounds shifted on me. Probably just coincidence, but who knows, eh? More chimes and musical stars in this latest segment - it almost sounds like a fruit machine in places (but for the bass).

I have mostly enjoyed it, though I would admit my concentration has been all over the place. I feel that grabbing it was a good decision, and keeping it is worthwhile, even if the chances that I will ever make the time to listen whilst shutting down my eyes are slim. I could well see it being used as background music for a sci-fi game at some point (playing in a Trek game at the moment so it could happen). Switch between this for exploration, and Ben Prunty's FTL Soundtrack for moments of conflict. Could work really well. That said, I am not a great believer in the use of music for roleplaying sessions - I find having to talk (or more accurately listen) over the music more of a burden to my enjoyment than any sense of atmosphere generated by a soundtrack. This could work though, because it is empty enough. I am into the final stretch, and I wonder if it is because I know that, or whether I can genuinely hear denouement in the soundscape, as if it is drawing in, contracting to a close. It is a tough call, but there is definitely a darkness creeping in, a bit more of an edge than there has been throughout. I find myself wondering how it will actually end - that must be a big decision in a composition like this. The answer seems to be by devolving into the hum, having that become all, then adding an echo before fading out. It is quite an anti-climactic end in truth.

Another Empty Galaxy is awe-inspiring in some ways, and definitely worth investigating if you like spacey or ambient tracks. If you have a good pair of headphones, a large couch and blackout curtains then building yourself a makeshift sensory deprivation chamber and indulging is a worthwhile thing to try, I would reckon. I am certainly amazed by how little I got bored by it, even as my mind started wandering and refused to pay full attention. In a piece this long, that speaks to a good variety; I have got bored a lot quicker to shorter tracks with more going on. So I end with two thumbs up for this, even if I am unlikely to ever give it this much attention again.