REVIEW: Irresistible Force, Global Chillage (Caroline Records)

- David Landgren

Okay. Let's keep this short. This is ambient music. Of course, the title is a dead giveaway. So, how good is it? Before slotting it in, two points in its favour. This is a second album, coming three years after the well-received 1992 debut, Flying High, so that's a good a sign as any to pay attention. Secondly, there is an email address for the record company if you want more info. (For the curious: astralwerks@cyberden.com). Mr. Morris Mixmaster (the person behind the band's name) himself is far hipper, having his own page on the Web (see below).

There is a lot to like about this album. As with a lot of ambient material, at first it is like staring at a random-dot stereogram: luscious colours and intricate details abound, but the overall structure remains hidden. After a few listens, however, a deeper appreciation emerges, and the individual pieces contrast themselves more.

The overall aspect is that most all of the sounds on the album are purely electronic, or else, when they are samples of real-world phenomena, they have been so heavily altered and twisted as to longer resemble anything in the physical world. No gongs, birds, chimes or seashores. There is the obligatory TV documentary narrator making an appearance at the beginning, but it's really only "Sunstroke", with its breathy sixties girlie "da-doo da-da-da-da-dah-doo" loop that seems a bit unfocused.

Head and shoulders about the rest of the tracks is the shimmering "Waveform" closing the album, which alone makes the album a worthwhile acquistion. You can file this one without shame along side The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, or Lifeforms or ISDN by The Future Sound of London.

While we're on the subject, a resource page on the ambient music scene can be found at http://hyperreal.com/ambient/links.html. The webless can just ftp to hyperreal.com.