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from WIND and WIRE
written by Bill Binkelman
http://www.windandwire.com
eM
All the Stars Burning Bright
Foundry/Hypnos (2001)
In a year that has seen some solid spacemusic albums, Foundry label main-man Michael Bentley, recording under the pseudonym eM, has released what is arguably the best DEEP space album of this great year. all the stars burning bright is a startling and ambitious voyage into the nether regions of our universe - travelling far beyond the Milky Way and into the inky black bywaters of the cosmos. As with all great spacemusic, it is best appreciated on headphones in a dark room, which is how I first came to love the CDıs blend of cool warmth, icy cold, friendly glow and forboding darkness.
The music on this album was produced from a variety of sources, including actual NASA astrophysical recordings of outer space phenomena, as well as sonic treatments and more traditional (more or less) electronic music devices. But the music on the CD is far from ordinary. Opening with the relative warmth of "a dream of summer stars," a cut which has bell-like tones, slowly revolving drones, and an irregular sense of rhythm, the CD is off to an inviting start. However, as this first track evolves, a forlorn Jon Mark-ish keyboard texture peppers the ebbing and flowing of an almost organic drone and a slight sense of darkness creeps into the cut, via some rumbling effects that permeate the lighter material.
"parsecs" takes you on your journeyıs first leg into deep space, using some otherworldy electric/electronic noise effects to impart a science-fiction feel to the track. Sounding like radio interference from a distant star, with 50s synth effects (bloop, bleep, and the like), the cut gets bonus points for going this far into experiemental (read: non-traditional music) territory and carrying it off so well. "starswarm" is one of my favorite cuts, sounding a little like the work of the English duo Aqueous (Felix Jay and Andrew Heath). Bubbly and twinkly synth bell notes echo in the blackness of distant space while sensual waves of electronic noise and rumblings undulate underneath. This song is both "fun" and spacy, if you can believe it.
Other tracks on this great album include "suspensions," a drifting dark ambient piece with some disturbing noise effects, sounding like meteorites whizzing past the hull as the hum of your engines reverberate deep within the bowels of your space cruiser. The piece later alternates between elements of more serene drifting ambient music contrasted with cyber-washes of electronic noise. "between" is heady stuff, almost disorienting in its use of bizarre but muted sonic textures, what sounds like electric guitar feedback, and other elements from the experimental side of the musical galaxy.
The CD closes strongly with "beyond the shoals of stars," a track that truly imparts the feeling that you have journeyed far beyond the limits of our universe and are now in truly uncharted waters - past all black holes, past all quasars, farther out than even the last remains of cosmic dust. This song, which is probably the most minimal on this album, has a palpable and overwhelming sense of empty space, of desolation and isolation - yet thereıs also a strange sense of calm and even excitement, as you would expect if you were exploring and mapping a new area of existence that none have seen before.
all the stars burning bright is not "typical" spacemusic a la Serrie, Bowles, Telomere. Itıs also not what I would call ambient either. Itıs more, well, spacy than that. Seldom melodic, itıs also not "too" non-musical. The album derives its musicality in unusual ways from distinctly unique sources. It took me about two or three playings before I "got" it, but when I did, I realized how masterful a recording it truly is. Michael Bentley has never been interested in following trends or playing it safe. On this CD, he sets out to re-define deep spacemusic, and he succeeds admirably. Recommended, doubly so for those who think spacemusic has become cliche of late.
Bill Binkelman
WIND and WIRE
http://www.windandwire.com