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Jeff Pearce: To the Shores of Heaven
ByIndeed this is a slow-paced album, but that hardly means that it is dull or boring. The motion of this music is drifting and cloud-like, often circling around a single motif, a minimalist meditation on a few notes or even one or two chord changes; in this it is similar to the work of Tim Story ( Beguiled, The Perfect Flaw ) who does similar things with piano. Because Pearce chooses to work with conventional tonality most of the time, he chooses harmonies which stand up and become enriched by this minimalist treatment, blended by the "infinite reverb" which is so characteristic of the best ambient. The sound-material dissolves into a magical shimmer that glows and fades at just the right moments.
At times, this soundscape dips into the realm of dark ambient (as in cut 5, "Rain as a Metaphor,") but it never stays there very long. This is an album I would classify as "ambience of light;" even though it sometimes has a melancholy undertone, it is created to bring out feelings of hope, beauty, and even exaltation. Towards the end of the album, with cut 10, "To the Shores of Heaven," Pearce unleashes swells of soundwaves which reach toward a vision of glory, then follows with a pastoral guitar epilogue, no. 11, "Reunions," where the "country" evoked is that of the far country beyond the gates of this world.
Pearce has put this album together beautifully, the succession of pieces creating moods which form a kind of ambient narrative leading from darkness to light, from sadness to hope. It is an exquisite album which should be numbered among this year's best.
Personnel
Album information
Title: To the Shores of Heaven | Year Released: 2000 | Record Label: Hypnos Recordings