Benn Jordan Pale Blue Dot: Dedicated to astronomer Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot is a trance inducing album well suited to thinking about the universe, and your place in it. Significantly more ambient than most of Jordan’s output, his arrangements contain less of the hyper-edited drum parts, and flashy soloing often found in material released [...]
Brethren of the Free Spirit-The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb
Brethren of the Free Spirit The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A 12 string acoustic player and a medieval lute player come together and create a beautiful harmonic climate. Theres a lot of influences at play here one can hear the echoes of everyone from John Fahey to J.S. Bach. Dissonance is incorporated [...]
Steve Reich-Daniel Variations
Steve Reich Daniel Variations: A beautiful piece that transcends the term minimalism. Though the drones and repetition, of minimalism are present Reich toys with them adding subtle changes that eventually evolve into completely different patterns. Reich utilizes a fascinating harmonic language particularly during the first track. He uses dissonant chords to at times create tension, [...]
Kronos Quartet-Plays Sigur Ros
Kronos Quartet Plays Sigur Ros: Its amazing how well stripping down these songs to four acoustic string instruments, and removing the vocals actually works. The music swells and retracts then changes course keeping one completely enamored and interested at what will happen next. One of the true highlights of this album comes when one or [...]
Earth – The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull
Earth The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull: Earth continue their transition from sounding like a broken refrigerator fed through a distortion pedal to a slow tempo post-gospel instrumental rock group. This is a really beautiful album to listen to while taking a walk, or lying at home with your head between the speakers. [...]
