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"Uncertain Futures and Fading Pasts" by Angelmark
"Uncertain Futures and Fading Pasts" is only $12.00CAN plus $3 shipping anywhere in the world!
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Angelmark "Uncertain Futures and Fading Pasts"
I like beautiful things, things that make me stop and appreciate the world around me, things that give me pause to think and wonder. "Uncertain Futures and Fading Pasts" is the second disc by Michael Turner's solo project Angelmark and it is undoubtedly a beautiful collection of music that inspires the stop, appreciate, pause, think and wonder response in me. "Equipoise" opens the disc with a repeated melody slowly gaining strength and volume, drifting into a more pronounced lead line that dances and floats around the same melodic ideal. A steady rhythm guitar plays underneath as lines blend and blur with eachother leading into a gradual disolve of sounds. It's a stunning opening, something wonderful. "Mam Tor" vibrates and oscilates with a beautiful intensity. A background drone provides accompanyment and a sense of movement that suggests displacement, relocation. It's a very evocative piece, surprisingly effective given it's minimalist nature. The third track "Fleeting Moment..." has a strong cinematic quality to it, suggesting rebirth and reawakening. I like this one, it has a serenity and grace that appeals to the optimist in me. Track four "Wintermute" is a stunningly beautiful piece, a delicate guitar melody that weaves in and out through a cascade of chiming bells and enveloping rhythm work. It's a truly wonderful piece that spirals and dances through the ether, and it's only fault is that it ends too soon. "Others Distant" follows a similar form, a minimal bass line anchoring a droning wall of guitar, a sense of oblique motion, drifting amongst stars. I wonder if this and "Wintermute" are flipsides of the same coin? They certainly complement eachother well... "Unseen" has a sense of tension and displacement to it, nothing so harsh as to be unsettling, but definately an anxious feeling about it. Guitar notes throughout the track feel choked and forced and background drones try to gain shape and form, but never quite succeed. It has a sense of claustrophobia to it, something uncomfortable. And yet despite all of that, it still has a feeling of beauty and charm about it. Lovely work. "Twilight World" offers some relief from the claustrophobia of "Unseen", soft shapes and forms growing underneath swirling backdrops and soothing lead lines. It's something beautiful and shoegazerish, something that a Slowdive or Cocteaus fan would adore, something that would be right at home in a film with Rose McGowan and Johnathan Schaech driving through the desert. Powerful. "Flowers Washed Down By the Rain" closes the disc, a minimal piece employing solemn piano and sweeping guitar playing overtop the steady sound of rain. A very nice environment is created in this one, something very lush and full, while maintaining a delicate quality, a sense of fragility. Very nice. Over the course of these nine songs, Turner creates a beautiful and magical environment for the listener to discover. His sense of space and production is impecable and his ability to develop and expand on melody is outstanding. Certainly "Uncertain Futures and Fading Pasts" is a release by an artist at the top of his game, and certainly deserves repeated listening and further exploration. rik - ping things
related itemslast updated 4/15/12
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