Music Reviews

	Ashok Prema - Stranger in a Strange Land
	Arc - Octane
	Under the Dome - Over the Pond
	Air sculpture, Fjord Transit.
	Air sculpture, Thunderhead.
	Synaesthesia: Desideratum
	Rainbow Serpent, Mosaique
	Ramp, Nodular
	Redshift, Downtime
	Redshift, Halo
	Klaus Schulze, Blackdance.
	Syndromeda, Birth of a black hole
	Syndromeda, In touch with the stars

	Brannan Lane, Escape Velocity
	Craig Padilla - Vostok
	Kelvin L Smith, Reclining Music
	Biosphere, Microgravity
	Zero Ohms / Brannan Lane, Soundfall to the infinite

	Jon Hopkins - Opalescent
	Gong - You
	Steve Jolliffe, Zanzi

Music Reviews - Some Rambling!

Why am I doing this? Well, much of this stuff is hard to get hold of, is not reviewed in the mainframe press, or takes a while to appreciate. So I'm kind of thinking that perhaps people searching for info on one album may find these pages.

I've never been a professional music reviewer, (sounds like a nice job though, and I am open to offers!), so these are very much personal opinions. You may hate stuff I love, or alternately love stuff I loathe.

What should an effective review try and cover? Well, the key things the reader wants to know are typically 'Will I like it?' and maybe 'Should I buy it?'. Potential listeners are likely to fall into one of a few groups too, which may help focus.

• Some will know earlier work by the artist, and for these, a comparison with this other work may help.
• Others may be unfamiliar, in which case comparison with other better known artists may help give a clearer idea of what the music is like. For these people too it will be helpful to suggest the best starting point for those interested in hearing the artist, which may not be the record currently being reviewed.

In general you will probably notice a distinct slant towards positive reviews. That is because I really think its not that useful to slag something off, unless a warning is required. So if I hear a musician I don't much like, I tend to ignore them rather than go out of my way to slag them off. (See 'Top ten rap and hop-hop').

I am not really interested in the instruments - despite having 2 synths myself, this is about music, not instruments.

The key references for me are:

1. Early Tangerine Dream. Completely performed on synthesisers and sequencers, with tunes thin on the ground. Floaty and abstract, sometimes with changing pulsing beats running underneath.
2. Later Tangerine dream. Much less abstract, often with other instruments added, and more conventional. Weaker material for me, but some prefer it.
3. Early Klaus Schulze. Hypnotic repetitive minor key sequences that run for 20 minutes or more.
4. Brian Eno's ambient music, and more abstract pieces.

See my pages here on 'A personal history of electronic music' for a more detailed view of this, also for some recommended listening.

Marks. Well, what does ten mean? What does one mean? Or perhaps more usefully, what does 5 mean? I intend to be very mean with 9's and 10's, either would indicate something completely definitive for it's genre, with 10 having very wide appeal too.

I won't review much below 5, for reasons stated above, (though I have plenty of pooh that deserves such marks!). I would consider 7 or 8 to be pretty good marks - let's put it like this, if I give something 7 or 8, I'll be looking for more by that artist. Below this the album is probably inconsistent with a mix of good and bad stuff, or something disappointing by someone we know is capable of better.

All highly subjective!

Nick