by Sylvain Lupari, Guts Of Darkness
October, 2009
Fans of somber and wrapping atmosphere, unravel your ears because here is an opus which will transport you beyond the limits of simple ambient music. STREAM OF THOUGHT is an album of ionospheres tinted with circular movements and encircled by synthesized loops which spin with persistence. An opus gathering two great musicians who, investigating the curves of musical caverns and the vestiges of their heritages, spread out a music that allies tribal rhythms to chloroformed movements and hypnotic sequences, flavored by a wide range of synths and guitars. A music that comes out of ancestral memories, for the purest pleasure of ears fond of luxuriant atmospheres.
A long title divided into 19 parts, STREAM OF THOUGHT starts as an evening news TV show. Clear and fervent tinklings on a continuous sequential movement are trailed by a guitar with honeyed chords and enclosed by a synth with intrusive shadows. A moderate EMPETUS, but so crystallized, which borrows the circles of very Roachian's heavy reverberations, in part two. A second monstrous part, where the resonant hoops multiply in nervous loops on a soft synth filled with spectral waves. Oscillating waves which wave above a synthesized storm, stuffed with sound refractions to echoes duped by aggressive structures. These first two parts pave the way for a hybrid album where the rhythm is next to the atonal passivity in a dark and muffled atmosphere, loosening clannish atmospheres which bloom with sequences of shelled chords or the paces of tribal dances.
The tenth part distances itself with a more electronic approach. Knockings on drum skins draw a hypnotic structure surrounded with a charming synthesized veil. It is soft, relaxing and attracting with its synthesized streaks which modulate slowly a strange melody of an unknown descent. The electronic approach becomes more eclectic on the following parts, forming a curious sea disturbed by waves which collide in a random way. A magnificent Roachian passage appears on part 13, lasting around 7 minutes with a movement boiling with slowly neurotic sequences, girded by a synth of spectral lamentations. A beautiful moment which reminds one of Roach's first works.
The presence of synthesized streaks overhang these syncretic jolts, sustained by Wollo's ghostly howling guitar. Brief atmospheric parts follow which uncork waddled tempos and ambient passages, until the last part which ends with a nervous rhythmic approach and a magnificent guitar with drawling impetous and a sequential structure which laps in a tenderly frivolous atmosphere.
With STREAM OF THOUGHT, the duet of Roach and Wollo redefines ambient music. The so-called "abstract" music with an epic title straightens into an atmosphere of a delicious bipolarity where the hazy rhythms, clear and incisive, are molded admirably to ambient passages, tinted with synthesized breaths and guitars which glance through a musical journey in outcomes as surprising as they are unexpected.
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Steve Roach, Erik Wøllo 2008 Projekt PRO224 (CD) Reviewed by All Music Guide, e/i magazine, Electroambient Space, Guts Of Darkness, MusicTAP, Sonic Curiosity, Sonic Immersion, Tokafi The mind is a mystery of thoughts and fluidly-shifting collected memories. There are many thoughts which form complete stories, while others are mere threads with no beginning or ending. The flow of ideas is energetic, pulsating and often in dramatic contrast. In the same manner, STREAM OF THOUGHT escorts us with cinematic precision through the mind's uncountable destinations. Organic electronic and new ambient sonic boundaries effortlessly dissolve on STREAM OF THOUGHT.
Presented as a 73-minute continuous flow. |