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from WIND and WIRE
written by Bill Binkelman
http://www.windandwire.com
VARIOUS ARTISTS
360° - A Foundry Project
The Foundry/Hypnos (2002)
360° is an exploration into various types of spacey neutral ambient, dark ambient and more abstract soundscapes. Being released on one the most adventurous labels in the field, Michael Bentley's The Foundry (a partner label with Hypnos) was a clue (for me) to the nature of the music I heard on these fifteen tracks (although six cuts are labeled "interpolation" and serve only as "bridges," each lasting about thirty seconds). I recognize some of the artists on this CD while others were new to me.
360° - A Foundry Project, per the liner notes, is actually a concept album (or, at least, it's thematic in nature), centering around a science fiction narrative of an encounter with something (?) which occurs during (what I take to be) a deep space exploration. I'll let you, the listener, read the notes to get the rest of the story, though. Each "song" relates to part of the tale and I must say that I was impressed with the "story" and how the attempt was made (many times quite successfully, I might add) to tell the tale with the music, using the liner notes as a road map, so to speak. Not all of the selections were to my liking, however, seldom do I love everything on a Foundry release, so take that statement with a grain of salt. However, when I do like a song on one of this label's recordings, I usually LOVE it - and 360° is no exception to that.
Tracks I liked/loved include the first two cuts, rhomb's "360° theme" (featuring gamelan-like tones, shimmering bells, "quiet bursts" of synthesizer washes, and unearthly background static), eM's (one of Michael Bentley's pseudonyms) "Reflective" (a return trip to his excellent emotionally-neutral but somehow "warm" space-ambient music that I last heard on all the stars burning bright), and Jonathan Hughes' "Viscous Space" (a slightly abstract - but not unpleasantly so - soundscape of strange percussive echo effects, stray electronic bloops, bleeps and static-like textures, and mild drones, that eventually morphs into a neat down-tempo hard ambient track). I totally loved High Skies "Staars" which put me in mind of Richard Bone if he would juxtapose his cyber-cool rhythms with a spacier take on melody (the bass beats on this song anchor a lush keyboard wash and assorted echoed effects, like a "whoop" sound and gentle semi-gamelan tones). Also worthy of mention is "Zargasso" (contributed by Sketch) which opens with immersive washes of synths, very typical of traditional spacemusic, but soon the song adds other imaginative touches (what sounds like water drums, distorted rustling/barking effects, and echoed electronic shuffles). Space-jazz bass beats (sampled from an upright string bass perhaps?) grab the more staid elements and drag them into cyber-cool neon bar territory for a while. By song's end, a funky kinetic midtempo ambient rhythm track is layered over everything, which I liked a lot.
The more abstract (or at least abstract to my way of thinking) tracks here didn't work as well for me, although I admire each artist's talents and vision in fulfilling "his part of the story." "Shrine" (Seofon and Mark Van Hoen) is a curious exploration of mildly discordant "hard" ambient music, strengthened with undiscernible dialogue samples, but the abundance of scratch effects proved to be my undoing, as well as some of the background noises. "Embers" by Thermal is quite minimal, consisting of echoed high-pitched tones combined with deep rumbling "factory machine-like" noises, and soon merging with other distortive electronic textures, again somewhat machine-like in sound. Kim Cascone's "Superfield" once again (as also happened with his contribution to Where Stalks the Sandman) left me unaffected - it just seemed like so much white noise. Perhaps its presence (on this album) among more "user-friendly" earlier tracks ("Superfield" is the fourteenth track on this CD) was what undid it for me.
I am seldom disappointed by a recording from The Foundry, even when it proves to be something I don't enjoy, per se. I'm glad to say that such is not the case here. While there are some songs that didn't do it for me, what does work here is excellent stuff. As on Michael's all the stars burning bright, the artists featured on 360° have reinvented traditional spacemusic by infusing it with imagination, a sense of darkness (yet not fear) that usually is missing from the genre, and a quirkiness (by incorporating all the strange electronics and noise effects) that can only add to the visual component evoked from the SF storyline in the liner notes. As a concept/thematic album, (even with some less-than stellar, no pun intended, tracks), this CD is a resounding success and I recommend it to fans of both ambient music and spacemusic (at least those of you who aren't afraid to break out of the more traditional mold for the latter genre).
review by Bill Binkelman
WIND and WIRE
http://www.windandwire.com/ambient_compilations.htm#360