Elios Posted September 6, 2013 Share Posted September 6, 2013 Artist: E-Mantra Album: The Hermit's Sanctuary Label: Altar Records Genre: Ambiant, Psy-chill, Downtempo Between Two Worlds : The Boatman 7:25 The Hermit's Sanctuary part I - Medidate 6:54 The Hermit's Sanctuary part II - Sleep 7:05 The Hermit's Sanctuary part III - Requiem 5:58 Howls from the Deep 6:48 Daydream 6:27 Pheromone 6:54 Harmonic Waves (re-edit) 6:13 Nocturne 7:29 Lonely Sorrow 7:25 I was listening to this album with my brother in his car. As soon as the first track begun, he told me : « It sounds like music for a movie. » As an ambiant music fan and dj, I've heard this sentence several times. Usually it bothers me. But this time, I completly agree with my bro. When you listen to the entire album The Hermit's Sanctuary, in the proper order, you find the same structure as a story: an introduction, a development, a crash and an ending. There is a global ambiance progressing throughout the albums sequence. While listening to the album, one easily gets into the tale that E-Mantra builds for the listener to experience. Each track has a place, and a good place. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::ॐ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: As soon as the first track starts one can feel the tale slowly begin. With Between Two Worlds: The Boatman, we start at the beginning of the journey. An atmospheric track, without any beat, which slowly presents dark waves of sound. A creepy track in which one can feel oneself in a old haunted boat moving and rolling in the fog of a rainy night. Next, we travel with Meditate, Sleep and Requiem, the three parts of the track The Hermit's Sanctuary. Begining with birds and ocean wave sounds, Meditate gently evolves through a soft piano melody of an early morning sunny day on the sea. With Sleep, it's kind of the same structure, presenting shining, soft and relaxed sounds. This track progress throughout with a catchy simple loop that stays in your head forever. Finally, Requiem installs the beat. After a beautiful short atmospheric introduction, a mellow kick starts the track. It's an awesome tune that progress and transforms in an original way. My favorite track of the album! After Howls from the Deep, wich bring us into the lower layer of our consciousness, the album softly installs a psy-chill universe. Daydream proposes a chill psychedlic texture lead with a deep kick. With Pheromone, my second favorite track of the album, the kick is still there, but way more intense. In a 80 BPM tempo, this track offers a marvelous spiritual melody build around soft and bouncing psychedelic sounds; a deep spiritual track that reminds me of the style of the first E-Mantra ablum Visions from the Past. Harmonic Waves is a faster track. With a catchy spacey loop, this tune makes its way into a psychedelic trip-hop texture. Just after, Nocturne builds a shining melodic adventure accompanied by a constant mellow kick. Kind of the same structure as Pheromone, but less intense and more luminous. Finally, Lonely Sorrow closes the journey. Like Beetween Two Worlds: The Boatman, this one presents atmospheric and floating waves of sound. No beat, no loop. It is a deep track, but it's not a creepy track. If with the first tune Between Two Worlds: The Boatman, we feel ourselves being trapped by shadow forces, Lonely Sorrow presents the key, the one to find our way through the shadow and find The Hermit's Sanctuary. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::ॐ:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: I've listened to many ambiant, chill, atmospheric music albums in my life. To be honest, it's really rare that I don't skip a track or two when I listen to a whole album beginning to end. But with The Hermit's Sanctuary, I press play, I close my eyes, and let myself go into a whole journey of sounds, images and feelings. For sure, this E-Mantra album is an ambiant album. Without a doubt, it creates an ambiance that you can follow like a movie. Get on the boat and live the adventure of The Hermit's Sanctuary! You can buy and listen to samples at: http://www.altar-records.com/sanctuary.html http://altar.bandcamp.com/album/the-hermits-sanctuary Youtube links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uaQzT5iHBA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U-Q9q_Epes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliendna99 Posted September 6, 2013 Share Posted September 6, 2013 Great review. Really made me want to get my hands on this. To maybe reignite the interest in goaambient Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starkraver Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Beauty beauty beauty!! It's hard to believe that it's first review was done only yesterday.. Great review thou.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penzoline Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 E-Mantra for the love of god, make a full album like Tracks 1 and 5! That amazing dark, twisted sci-fi ambient sound is incredible! Man I could totally see this type of sound in a darker thrillerish scifi movie too. "Scored by E-Mantra", wouldn't that be neat!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronSun Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 Fantastic album indeed. I listened to his first downtempo album again yesterday and it's good to see he made a lot of progress in the storytelling-aspect over the entire album. Very cinematic! I agree with Penzo, I would love to have more of those beatless tunes from E-Mantra. Favorites until now are 1, 2 and 5, although the album in it's entirety is a great story Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JISNEGRO Posted September 13, 2013 Share Posted September 13, 2013 E-Mantra for the love of god, make a full album like Tracks 1 and 5! That amazing dark, twisted sci-fi ambient sound is incredible! Man I could totally see this type of sound in a darker thrillerish scifi movie too. "Scored by E-Mantra", wouldn't that be neat!? And your prayers have been heard! "E-Mantra Moon im thinking to make a full dark ambient album..probably my next step" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penzoline Posted September 13, 2013 Share Posted September 13, 2013 Ah that'd be fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psybient.org Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 E-Mantra one of my favourite producers, all the tracks are deep and magic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 This one is a masterpiece! It's rare that one producer can create two amazing albums in one career (much less two amazing albums in two different styles in one career) but "The Hermit's Sanctuary" and "Nemesis" are complete and stunning works. The highlights for me are the title tracks parts 1-3, those never fail to amaze me and they flow together like a mini-adventure inside a larger adventure. Beautiful piece of work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trance2MoveU Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 Artist: E-Mantra Title: The Hermit's Sanctuary Label: Altar Records Date: April. 2013 1. Between Two Worlds - The Boatman 2. The Hermit's Sanctuary Part I - "Meditate" 3. The Hermit's Sanctuary Part II - "Sleep" 4. The Hermit's Sanctuary Part III - "Requiem" 5. Howls From The Deep 6. Daydream 7. Pheremone 8. Harmonic Waves (Re-edit) 9. Nocturne 10. Lonely Sorrow "I think we should see other people." Sounded like a good idea at the time didn't it Bugs? Now you can't sleep, tossing and turning, imagining your girl gettin' twisted up like a pretzel by Daffy. You know what they say, once you go black... 4 hours. I think I'm surviving on 4 hours a night. That can't be healthy. The only positive is that I get to listen to some great music when everyone is asleep. Totally quiet, I just pop the headphones on and instantly I'm immersed in the world of whoever. This night it happened to be the Romanian master Emmanuel Carpus. Having already conquered the land of goa this was his 3rd release in the downtempo arena. And boy has he progressed. The opening track is so f*cking epic that like the rest of you I eagerly await an album of dark acidic ambient. The atmosphere is so thick that you cannot help but become swallowed by it. The next three tracks (trilogy!) are comprised of soft, gentle sounds soaked in reverb escorting me slowly to dreamland. It's a happy place, where I can eat all the pizza I want and never get fat. A place where I can buy a copy of Technossomy's Synthetic Flesh, BPC's Blue Planet, and MWNM's Teleportation for just a dollar. Madness! He gets back to the delicious dark beatless ambient with Howls From The Deep and it's so overpowering I feel I might need to turn a light on. Daydream, Phereomone, and Nocturne are slow churns and like a lot of his slower stuff he brings goa melodies to almost a crawl. The effects enhance the tracks as the melodies drift into each other. Harmonic Waves also slows things down, but with a little breakbeat to keep things fresh. Lonely Sorrow closes things out with more atmospheric beatless ambient. Not as dark as the other ones, but it certainly isn't light either. This album is what you expect it to be. Slow, dreamy music with floating melodies and more than enough atmosphere. His production has always been top notch and it's nice to see him stretching its wings. Highly recommended. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitrinos Posted May 16, 2016 Share Posted May 16, 2016 Yes, this album is fantastic, this guy knows how to create atmospheric vibes. All tracks are very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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