“The main highlight of Process of Being is this capacuty of Zero Ohms to maintain an interest for a constant music which lives without a single pulse”
1 The Present Perfect Tense of Being 14:24
2 The Approach of Nothingness 9:30
3 Glimpsing the Eternal 13:59
4 The Dream Dreaming You 10:26
5 The Process of Being There 9:19
6 Nameless 8:47
Spotted Peccary | SPM2501
(CD/DDL 66:28) (V.F.)
(Ambient and meditative EM)
Compact air masses float and draw the banks of a sonic river which floats with the repercussions of its imperfections. Ambient and floating, the music of The Present Perfect Tense of Being gets outline in our ears with a superb contrast between the black and the white, between the shade and the light. The tones are divided between lines of WindSynth and their black tints which float as threatening clouds, forming an imaginary rampart and digging the furrows of an astral river of which the soft singings are threatened by more thundering waves, and some more ethereal breaths of which the caresses draw clear waters speckled of dark mirrors. And The Present Perfect Tense of Being to flow in the firmament of serenity with its fluty airs which kiss the more disturbing shadows which come from the deeper gorges of Richard J. Robert's WindSynth. We know more the music of Zero Ohms due to his 3 collaborations with Craig Padilla, among which the charming Path of Least Resistance in 2005, than his works in solo which are total mosaic of ambient and Zen EM. Architect of winds and of their soft abstract harmonies through 10 albums of a peace of mind to make sleep clouds, Zero Ohms offers a very first album solo on the American label Spotted Peccary, the same one that produced the fruit of his collaborations with Craig Padilla. PROCESS OF BEING is a deep ambiospherical ode, a very meditative fresco, where everything rests on the quietude of the slow movements morphic of the winds and their allies with fluty fragrances. No rhythms, not even the shade of a pulse. Nevertheless, the music is confidentially inviting and enveloping with long moments of ambiances where the serenity becomes the new companion of our awaken dreams for the next 70 minutes. And I must add that we even sleep there and this in spite of the strong turbulences of the winds.
The Approach of Nothingness follows the morphic vapors of The Present Perfect Tense of Being but with a clearly less sibylline approach, although that some reverberating waves are pushing the track towards summits of anxiety at the end of its road. It's a track which is closer of celestial bodies than Glimpsing the Eternal which is very poetic, even musical or dreamer, with its discreet fluty chants of which we perceive the light rustles of the undecided lips. Besides these frictions of lips on the beaks of flutes add a delicious intimist dimension as much as the fusion of flutes and WindSynth is bewitching with duets of which the lines espouse the same curves with different tints. It's quiet, very quiet, and doubtless the most poetic title here. What seduces the most in this ZeroOhms' last album is this very subtle duel which turns around the various flutes and those breezes from the WindSynth. If one, the WindSynth, adorns the album of a dark and sometimes sinister atmospherical pattern, the flutes add tints of pastel and joy of life in this timeless labyrinth of which croissants often kiss the limits of cosmos, like in the very restful The Dream Dreaming You where our ears have the impression to hear the last groans and the last ones thought of a fallen sovereign. Darker winds push scarlet breezes in the vast Aeolian Nile that is the title-track. Between The Present Perfect Tense of Being and The Approach of Nothingness, The Process of Being There spreads its pads of dark flutes in the greatnesses of the calm winds of which the translucent blows and the sneaky reverberations espouse delicately the crevices of its lunar banks. A little more and we touch the winds. Nameless ends this ode to passivity from Zero Ohms with a clearly more black approach, amplifying this duality between the dark and resounding winds and the soft fluty chants which get lost in it and which make of PROCESS OF BEING an album where the absence of rhythms does not mean being inevitably deprived of interest. For music lovers of ambient, Zen and very meditative EM!
Sylvain Lupari (April 1st, 2014) ***½**
Available at Spotted Peccary Bandcamp