Despite all its heavy Windham Hill cum rain stick sensibilities, the Public Radio affair known as Echoes is also one of the few national outlets for those who seek deep ambient satisfaction. That is unless you're close enough to some Urban club-scape that actually harbours a house of techno that either has an low BPM area or is daring enough to sponsor an evening's worth of the electro-dub stuff. If neither of the preceding options aren't available, then finding a way to grasp what's out there might be a bit tricky were it not for collections like these.
As difficult as it may be to to make an album's worth of sometimes barely pulsing electronics and endlessly looped rhythms sans lyrics, Astralwerks continually manages to compile enough of the engaging moments ambient techno has to offer, without dispelling the listener's interests into the cosmos. Which is more than can be said on occasion for some of the more well appointed artists of the genre - take heed Sir Richard Twin.
With a nod to the liner notes, the tracks (ten total) are indeed steeped in enough and echo and delay to consider the treatments as vital and or integral to the pieces herein. But what appears more crucial, however, are the bracing mix and variety of sound smatterings pasted here and there that draw your attention. It would be a near silly exercise to attach a particular description to a few of the samples, (check out the shuddering Doctor Who-ish burst of distortion that runs through Far Out Son Of Lung's "Cow") but they are often the key elements; the hook; the drives much of the track's personality.
Previous Excursions have rounded up the bigger names in the field as well as the lesser knowns, but much of The Fourth Frontier dwells more towards the latter. Research indicates that Flying Saucer Attack's "Instrumental Wish" is not indicative of their general style per se, but it's a well sussed addition for it's inclusion of some last minute indie-space guitar that's far more attention grabbing than what's recently to be heard from garage guitar wiz Thurston Moore. The "Sonic Lullaby" edit (that clocks in at 8:04 mind you) by Me-Sheen is probably just a hair or two shy of infringing wholesale on Kraftwerk's shtick circa The Man Machine, but the execution is so blissfully on target, it's far more tribute than rip off. The spare but rumbling synth intro to Luna Sol's "D.I.A.P.O.W" sets up a tremendous otherworldy atmosphere that turns around to slyly introduce and deftly blend in a handfull of ultra-appealing organic sounds. Even Ben Neill hands in an alluring bit that teams up some groovy bass work with some neat lost soul of Miles Davis horn abstractions.
And while I'm surprised that the the Astralwerks folks didn't nab a moment from someone like U-Ziq (who's definitely a feather in their current roster) to relpace the one of two less gripping spots here (777's "Fay Deau Deau", for instance, continues to show how off-center and dull their approach can be), they recoup enough of the ambient verve overall not to require the benefit of his name recognition. For those who aren't hardcore enough to seek out obscure white label resources or a bored with the brutish, hit or miss-ness of Profile Records Best of Techno collections, Excursions in Ambience once again delivers an elegant survey of the sea of ambience.
