“Time Being's A Dimension Reflected is a nice ambient bedside album filled of surprising morphic layers with hybrid musical tints”
1 Everending 10:44 2 Dust of Sorts 9:11 3 Future Forming 7:46 4 In the Care of Knowing 3:41 5 Present Bending 9:47 6 Static Flow 9:52 7 As you Pass this Way 10:36 8 Time Being 11:29 Spotted Peccary | LSM 020
(CD/DDL 73:11) (V.F.) (Ambien New Age)
Being present all the time and to value the timelessness of each second is the maxim that granted itself the new duet of ambient EM; Time Being. Photographers and musicians inspired by works of Brian Eno, Steve Roach, Robert Rich and the other pioneers of ambient EM, Jourdan Laik and Phillip Wilkersonare very appealed by the static and floating tones of the landscapes style, promulgated by American artists in the 80's, the cradle of New Age. Completely ambient, without percussions nor sequences, A DIMENSION REFLECTED is constituted of 8 tracks which become entangled in a same musical dimension. A dimension which respects the nuanced colors of the artwork which seems to be the link of a musical pact for those who like to transpose colors into ambiance.
Everending hatches with fine ethereal lines where astral choirs criss-cross green fanciful meadows full of subtle birds chirping. Delicate, Everending evolves in ambient and atmospheric mode with a skilful mixture of timid drones and smooth angelic synth layers which float as the big winged impulsions of American eagles. More serene, Dust of Sorts fits to Everending same lines but with a more melodious approach where celestial voices penetrate even deeper the gleaming synth lines. Future Forming presents the dark side of Time Being with long reverberant drones which float heavily among twinkling scattered arpeggios and more limpid synth gentle winds. It’s a very good track which plays on nuances of darkness and luminosity, quite as powerful Present Bending which is, on the other hand, more introspective and quite nearer Steve Roach ambient structures, Future Forming melts in contrast with the twinkling In the Care of Knowing which demonstrates a clear influence for Michael Streans' complex harmonies. The more we move, the more we fall under the spell of music without borders of which the only beatings are the implosions of its movements. Morphic movements to hybrid layers which juggle through latent reverberations and astral winds swollen by abstract choruses as in Present Bending and the intense Static Flow which seizes by the duality of its harmonies buried in a long linear movement. After 2 intense tracks, As You Pass This Way emerges as morning dew with its glittering harmonious structure which sparkles of a thousand melodious prisms. A track which, isolated, can seem banal and quite very New Age with its David Lanz approach, but inserted between Present Bending and Static Flow displays all its musicality with a structure in suspension where float nice lines bursting of limpidity and scattered chords which concoct a very nice cocktail of subdivided harmonies on a long movement always on horseback between the gloom of afternoon rains and the sun which dry its traces. Time Being concludes this gamut of musical assortments all the same rather paradoxical with a track as harmonious as As You Pass This Way but with a more electronic approach where synth layers float, as celestial as in Everending, and whose long musical flights remain suspended in moment, giving the necessary time to sinuous melodies buried in the astral depths to join for a tasty one-dimensional whirlwind where harmonies and stillness get united in a last temporal flight.
A DIMENSION REFLECTED has pleasantly surprised me. It's a nice bedside album, filled with surprising morphic layers with hybrid musical tints. A beautiful find which enlarges Spotted Peccary Music's catalogue. Ben Cox's label shows one more time its commitment to pick up and promote an EM which presents its musicality between the spheres of a complex EM and another more crystal clear and harmonious in a mainly ambient sphere.
Sylvain Lupari (August 29th, 2011) ***½**
Available at Spotted Peccary Music