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Various Artists: The Ambient Eclipse
So it would seem that I’ve got my work cut out for me.
The Ambient Eclipse is a collection of ambient works from various artists such as Steve Roach, Hiroki Okana, and a few other folks I’ve never heard of before. The collective objective of this release is apparently to turn one’s muscles into a substance akin to Jello – and at this, The Ambient Eclipse succeeds marvelously. The textures and emotions that the “music” radiates are truly relaxing, and kudos must be given to the artists for managing to evoke such feelings in their audiences. Steve Roach’s “Slow Rapture” is an especially intoxicating track, managing to be both soothing and ominous at the same time. But quite frankly, the CD could’ve been one long song and I wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference between tracks.
That brings me to what I feel is this CD’s secondary objective: to prove that two or three chords – when played at a slow enough tempo – can actually constitute an 8 minute song. Although The Ambient Eclipse comes nowhere near approaching Iron Butterfly territory (there’s no killer drum solo on this CD), most of the CD’s composers take minimalism to a whole new level. Again, as minimalism is apparently a goal of ambient artists, the performers on this release succeed here as well. I’m just not terribly sure how impressed I am that they DO succeed.
Anyway, as far as ambient recordings go, The Ambient Eclipse is excellent background music to meditate to, or with which to simply relax. As far as comparing it to other ambient recordings... well, it sounds the same as all the rest really. If you’re planning on going out and buying an ambient release for your collection, you could certainly do much worse than checking out The Ambient Eclipse. Of course, you could probably close your eyes and pick something out of the “Ambient” section completely at random and find a similar experience. Such seems to be the nature of the beast...
Track Listing
1. Cosmic Wind
Personnel
Various Artists
variousSteve Roach (USA), Hiroki Okano (Japan), Mychael Danna & Tim Clement (Canada), Stephen Bacchus (Canada), R.S. Thompson (U.S.A.), Jeff Pearce (USA), Frank Quasar (Belgium), David Knight (UK), Peter Ball (Australia), Paul Tedischini (Canada)
Album information
Title: The Ambient Eclipse | Year Released: 2000 | Record Label: MIRAGE
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About Various Artists
Instrument: Various
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