: foundry indices : reviews : sounds : : : news : pictures : words : : : the foundry : hypnos REVIEWS from Igloo Magazine (05.25.06) http://igloomag.com/ written by Mark Teppo, Contributing Editor Saul Stokes :: Vast (Foundry, CD) "...Vast doesn't show you how far away the horizon is, it pushes the edge of reality back as it unfolds the multiplicity of its timbres..." Saul Stokes' Vast has been elusive and coy with me. Filled with diaphanous electronic melodies that move like birds in flight across the light-flecked skies of early morning, it's a record that is so carefully constructed that it appears to be a natural expression of sound rather than a conglomeration of analog programming and hand-forged instrumentation. On a purely euphonic level, Vast is a note held sustained between ambient chillout and looping trance worship. Stokes makes all his own instruments (from the twined angel hair of babies and the sad songs of melancholic housewives and the sighing wheeze of slumbering dogs and old plastic water pipe that has lain forgotten in the garage for a decade, apparently), and they are devices that make winsome ephemera -- wooden flutes like the ones that trip through "Bursts and Blooms" that are blown by the old spirits that haunt the dahlia gardens, and the keyboards that aren't much more than collections of dandelion pods. "Far Away, Further" bubbles with the rhythm of plucked rubber and the tripping fantasy of fairy feet running across wire coat hangers. "Chrome Garden" is an ambient effusion of light through the petals of daisies and pansies and honeysuckle; while "Lighthaus" drifts close to shore, undulating with a oceanic rhythm and a dub echo of undertow and wind whistling through hollowed rock. Sounds like the drifting voices of gull traipse across the melody-dazzled sky. It's a vastly organic record that seems to grow of its own accord. You don't play this record so much as simply release it into your headspace where it scintillates and perambulates with an elusive abandon. To call Vast "ambient" or "new age" is to deny the hypnotic chaos of its movements. It breathes, evolves, transforms during the space of its existence. It could even be a different record every time you hear it. Vast doesn't show you how far away the horizon is, it pushes the edge of reality back as it unfolds the multiplicity of its timbres. Very nice. Vast is out now on Foundry. http://igloomag.com/doc.php?task=view&id=1309&category=reviews