I see them everywhere from department stores to garden centers - these little stands with speakers hawking "ambient nature" albums with nifty little new age beats. Albums titles like "Song of the Humpback Whale" and "Babbling Autumn Brook" beg me to take my warehouse-sized can of Cheetos and smash the hell out of the whole display.
Needless to say, when I saw Bill Laswell's name on a promo that read, "_Second Nature is... A series of sound environments that depict the world at micro level...", I got scared. Was a founder of ambient and "sound" based music making New Age, department store, crap? I didn't even put the disc in for a day because I was so worried.
I didn't need to be. Fortunately, Second Nature is the real thing. Bill Laswell and his friends Atom Heart and Tetsu Inoue have composed a work which is immediately original, invigorating, and captivating. This is true ambient music played by people who played long before you could buy a computer that would sequence everything for you. The result is that these three musicians can be labeled "musician" without vocals, a chorus, or a house beat.
Second Nature is a truly interesting work. The four tracks run over 66 minutes combined. They are filled with both electronic pulses and sampled sounds of nature. True to the title of the album, each of these tracks creates a "second nature". "Synthetic Forest", "Green Paste", and "Artificial Seaside" each reflect a mirrored world that Heart, Inoue, and Laswell have created.
The album explores each nature with reverberating drum beats and echoed voices both electric and organic. For the most part, the "form" of each track is established by seemingly random sound effects. This illusion is maintain until you realize the tracks have swirled the incoherent samples into a writhing yet soothing beat. The worlds in Second Nature are vivid and lush. The colors of the foliage bleed in vibrant hues and the landscapes are massive and majestic.
"Landing Circle" is a fitting end to this album. At a "short" 6 minutes and 25 seconds, it signals that this adventure has come to a complete stop. Your journey through the artifical, yet all too familiar, world is over. The ship is landing to take you away, and you are lifted slowly, just as quietly as it started, back to Earth.
I'm not sure if they started this project to make a concept album or not, but Second Nature is brilliantly thought through. If, in today's hectic world, you can find a room or pair of headphones that are quiet enough, you can escape to this ambient world. This is a prime example of how good ambient music can be and a good place for beginners who have thought those department store albums are so cheesy.
