“A good album for ambient and music lovers”
1 MoonWater 4:34
2 Midnight Fantasy Angel, Part I 5:26
3 Summer Fields 7:19
4 Midnight Fantasy Angel, Part II 12:39
5 Ancestral Legacy 4:15
6 The Legend of Kristy Lynn 7:09
7 Under Orion 5:17
8 Three Views of a Japanese Garden, Part II (live) 10:39
9 Three Views of a Japanese Garden, Part III (live) 6:03
(DDL 63:26) (V.F.)
(Ambient Music)
Rudy Adrian is a good synth wizard from New Zealand. His music style is quite ambient. An ambient music with a lot of emotionalism. MOOWATER is already his 10th album and his first on the American label Lotuspike, a division of Spotted Peccary.
The title-track sets the mood with a long and shifting whisper that meditates through sounds of natural elements and brief pulses that evolve with subtlety. A soft piano stirs Midnight Fantasy Angel, Part I. A superb melancholic track where the piano spreads its moods over floating layers and piercing sounds. Sad and dark, Adrian manages to touch us on this 2nd track. Without possessing a saddened touch, Summer Fields spreads its long foggy layers that blacken a horizon pierced by disturbing rustles. The title evolves with slowness, leaving time to appreciate each sigh which guides us to the aromas of Midnight Fantasy Angel, Part II. More melodious, the piano evolves on clear and buzzing notes, reflecting the dark paradoxes of this structure. The instrumentation is richer and the rhythm smoother with the heavy bass that pulls the movement on its reverberation, where of its heaviness a subtle melody get crushed into angel dusts. A rain shower welcomes Ancestral Legacy on tribal flutes with sharper impulses. The flute multiplies shaded tones with tribal sound effects and clear, sparse arpeggios that illuminate parcels of harmonies.
Driven by slow impulses, The Legend of Kristy Lynn is livelier. Its chiming notes reflect their echoes on earthly whispers and heavenly voices with a very slow movement that sucks in time, letting the chiming harmony seduce ears fogged by breaths of a thousand meanings. Under Orion is a good progressive movement that turns slowly on its axis with minimalist exhalations, escaping some notes with uncertain harmonies. Can we hear water on Orion? It seems so, and it's with Michael Stearns-like breaths that we go there. Humm... A sweet magic moment. The synth breath in suspension, fine keys weave on a buzzing bass that reflects its echo on the mirror of time. A track with a tribal essence and voices reciting an incantation on soft timbres and limpid keyboards chords, creating a melodious aura in a mysterious environment that stretches like the wind leaves its furrow in a dune. And it is in a whistled serenity that Three Views of a Japanese Garden, Part II ends. Three Views of a Japanese Garden, Part III is speechless, and leaves us speechless. A beautiful impulse of pure beauty where tenderness cradles hope on a moving synth with tearful stripes. Quite a finale!
I have heard Rudy Adrian's work and I am not surprised by the beauty of MOOWATER. This is ambient! But ambient with soul and depth. I didn't see any trace of New Age as some reviews indicate. It may be ambient electronic music (EM), but it is still complex and rather emotional. Elements that the New Age pastiche does not have. Through his short musical stories, Adrian unfolds a harmonious wisdom on tender impulses and structured in such a way that the ear always catches a passage here and there. A good album for ambient and music lovers.
Sylvain Lupari (December 8th, 2006) *****
Available at Spotted Peccary Music