abasio Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 Mathias Grassow & Thomas Weiss Insights Databloem 2007 Tracklist 1 In (7:23) 2 Circles (13:55) 3 Whole Pulse (17:01) 4 Language Of Silence (9:15) 5 Sights (13:43) These 2 German ambient maestros were unbeknownst to me before I bought this album but I bought it anyway on the strength of the Databloem brand. Yes databloem is one label that I can buy from blindly & always get some thoughtful ambient brilliance that at first I will find boring but then with some time, effort & focus I will find utterly amazing. So, did that happen here? Let's see. 1. In We start off with a lush ambient number with a nice drone throughout & ethereal voices coming out of the darkness. There is not a whole lot of substance to it but it is the kind of ambience that draws you in & that you can easily get lost in. 2. Circles The more percussive circles has the same droning ambience in the foreground but has some tribal beats in the background. Nice to have it that way a round so you have to focus to feel the beats. The beats seem steady but under closer inspection evolve slowly gaining more energy & they really feel like they are building to something. What it actually builds up to is a sonic downpour of ambience! The sounds in the end of this track really feel like the pouring of electronic rain on a cold dark winter day. 3. Whole Pulse Circles seamlessly slips into this whole pulse & it really lives up to it's name. The drone pulses slightly giving this ambient movement. The cold wind that blows behind the drone is so real that I actually get chills listening to it. That really is all there is to this track which you think might be incredibly boring as it goes on for 17 minutes but amazingly I stay interested throughout the whole duration. The tone of the drones move up & down just slightly enough to jolt the brain waves & the wind changes ever so slightly into a more solar sound and right at the death becomes a more high pitch fire in the darkness. It keeps pushing at the membrane but in a nice relaxed way that makes this a very dreamy sleepy track. 4. Language of Silence Seamless again into this track. Very much a continuation of Whole Pulse but has a little more going on. Sounds buzz & twinkle in this track, under the drone seems to be life in the outer reaches of nothingness. In the vastness of space between planets there is not much but in this track there seems to be at least single cell life. Something that the light bounces off of. A very nice floaty track, feels like I'm orbiting a huge star at a distance of over 100Au. So just in the distance can I see one light just brighter than the rest, but not obvious. Very cool Spacey ambient. 5. Sights A slightly more melodic track to finish with, with soft squelchy oscillating synths & a really bright atmosphere. I feel like the long journey through this alien space has suddenly come to it's final stage. We have passed through the out reaches of deep space between worlds, passed the outer & inner solar system & are now entering the suns corona but rather than the hot fiery death you might expect we are treated to a soft warmth surrounding us as we float around the star. The striking synth sounds that oscillate upwards feel like solar flares off to each side of my journey. A wonderful bright way to finish this journey through spacey ambient sounds. This release will be classified as many as a complete yawn fest & believe me, a large proportion of people are not going to like this. It's not melodious, there is not much rhythm in it & the beats are non existent. This is pure ambience. It creates an atmosphere of floating through space & into a sun. If you are a fan of spacey drone ambient with little in the way of anything but which manages to create a great sound. Put this on, close your eyes, remove any outside distractions & let it float you away into a slow journey in space between the stars. The bleakness of outer space is summed up in this album. Dark nothingness with pinholes of brilliant light. Incredibly psychedelic if you give it a chance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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