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from Aquarius Newsletter 11/2002
http://aquariusrecords.org/
SWIRE, BEN "Equilibrium" (Foundry) cd ep 5.98
The Foundry is a San Francisco ambient label, whose definition of ambient resides squarely in the mid-'90s. At that time, the utilitarian chill out rooms of warehouse parties and raves intended to calm the over-stimulated, ecstacy-addled brains of ravers; yet it also began to produce a very specific variation of synth-based ambient music that converged with world beat, post-industrial, psychedelia, and anything else that you could zone out to. Labels like Beyond, Emit, and Silent offered warm and fuzzy ambient cocktails with holistic claims of inter-dimensional travel, brain-tuning, and other new age drivel. Yet, with any aesthetic form, gems did emerge, with the mid-'90s ambient highlight being the Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works Vol 2." Ben Swire's debut EP aspires towards that Aphex pinnacle, and comes respectably close with an interesting use of IDM-informed / post-drum & bass rhythms spartanly skittering amidst the synthetic floes of ambience. Swire, who has previously worked with Neotropic on one of her NTone singles, displays a slippery use of nursery rhythm melodies that unveil themselves to be quite sublime, not unlike Boards of Canada's "Geogaddi" album.