"A Distant Signal" by Alpha Wave Movement
"A Distant Signal" is only $20.00CAN plus shipping and taxes where applicable!
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Alpha Wave Movement "A Distant Signal"Beautiful Space Music reminiscent of alien landscapes.
Gregory Kyryluk (a.k.a. Alpha Wave Movement) has crafted some of the best rhythmic and floating electronic ambient albums in recent years, going all the way back to his excellent debut, Trancendence, and including recent releases like Drifted Into Deeper Lands and his collaboration with Jim Cole (of Spectral Voices fame), Bislama. But even with all that, I was unprepared for the superlative exploration of spacemusic that is A Distant Signal. Slot this winner alongside classics like And the Stars Go With You and Flightpath (from Jonn Serrie), West of the Galaxy (from Geodesium) and Planetary Unfolding (from Michael Stearns). It deserves to be there, goodness knows. My belief in the above opinion was forged when I went for a late evening walk (with Onyx, our lab-rottweiller mix) under a full moon along the Mississippi River Parkway near our house. I grabbed my portable CD player and put A Distant Signal in. Wow - talk about a synchronous experience! I thought I was going to float up into the dark night sky! A great collection of songs fills this entire album: the analog-sounding warmth of the opening track, "Mapping the Heavens," (with neat dialogue samples from the film Contact), playfully cosmic rhythms on "Outward Bound" (and its twinkling bell-like synth effects and soaring chords and washes), the mournful adagio number "Requiem for C.S." (written by Gregory in memory of the late Carl Sagan and filled with dramatic and sorrowful melodies), and perhaps my favorite track, "Portal Full of Stars" (a sly nod to 2001, perhaps?), which opens amidst spacy effects and deep rumblings, but evolves into an inviting, kinetic and trippy slice of outer space beats, lovely washes and synth chords, anchored by appropriately echoed sparse piano. While purists may claim that overt rhythms and electronic beats are verbotten in "true" spacemusic, I say "Phooey!" From the cover art of a nebula against a backdrop of stars to titles like "Lunar Sunrise," "LiquidCosmos," and "Centauri Memories," A Distant Signal is spacemusic par excellence to THIS science fiction and astronomy fan. I love both the low-key drifting minimal yet warm tonalities of "Plasma Cloud" as well as the slightly spooky "No Man's Land," with its opening computer noises and snippets of radio transmissions flowing into breathy expanses of keyboards, which manage to be both majestic yet serene, and morphing into a driving propulsive marriage of beautiful minor/major keyboards and fast tempo beats. The title track similarly evolves from its beginning (lush layers of analog-like keyboards and spacy effects that gradually recede in favor of a circular synth-bell refrain on top of lush keyboards and a midtempo rhythm section - high-hats, bass drums, hand percussion effects - with the emergence of a lovely main melody line on Serrie-like synths). Other points of recommendation for A Distant Signal include the variety of shorter and longer (but not too long) tracks and perfect engineering, which makes playback on headphones a superior listening experience. Fans of not just John Serrie but also Geodesium (a.k.a. Mark Petersen) are particularly encouraged to pick up on this recording. All in all, A Distant Signal is about as perfect as a spacemusic album can get, in my opinion. With equal doses of warm melodies, spacy synths, "cruising speed" rhythms, and floating ambient stretches that suggest the vastness of the cosmos, this album deserves to find a huge audience. It has to be in the running for best spacemusic recording of 2002, and probably one of the best of the (admittedly young) decade as well. Bill Binkleman - Wind and Wire "A Distant Signal" by Alpha Wave Movement perfectly captures the wonder and mysteries of the cosmos, but unlike most space music which suggests travel and exploration beyond the stars, AWM has created a disc that pays tribute to the inspiration that space brings. Rather than exploring space itself, "A Distant Signal" seems to explore our own perceptions of the cosmos. With track one "Mapping the Heavens" our curiosity is piqued with a simple question asked to open our minds to the possibilities of life on other planets. Lush synth tones caress the senses, a feeling of movement, the slow passage of time. The mood builds in track two, "Distant Signals", where the sounds of beautiful, thick pads pass through the soundfield like comets in the night sky sending obscure signals to us in unspoken languages. Soon a sensuous groove draws us in and we find ourselves surrounded by alien voices. Quite beautiful. "Liquid Cosmos" slows the tone but continues to draw us deep into the mysteries of the stars, a beguiling arpegio playing in the distance, a wash of synth, and the occasional chime. A truly breathtaking track. In track five, "Outward Bound", tones slowly build up from seeming nothingness until they achieve a level of clarity and focus, a slight groove taking shape and complexity much like our own understanding of the heavens has grown with further study. Marvelous work. Skip ahead to "Portal Full of Stars" which begins with a subtle drone and grows from there.Low deep tones slowly inch the piece forward giving way to minimal piano work, rising and falling sounds in the distance, each note another star, another galaxy to explore. "No Man's Land" suggests the isolation of space, the vast openness, the ideas of distance so great that our minds can only just begin to understand what they mean. Starting with a sombre and sparse intro, the piece builds in complexity with parts fading in and out throughout, a sense of understanding taking shape that while we may gain a greater understanding of the cosmos in our lifetime, there are still many lifetimes worth of discoveries to be made. A truly beautiful track capping a truly beautiful album. With the release of "A Distant Signal" Alpha Wave Movement has truly captured the feeling of looking to the sky and wondering what's out there, and inspires us to continue looking in hopes that one day we'll find out. Surely this is space music at it's finest, a disc with as many discoveries and delights as there are stars in the sky... rik - ping things related items Browse other titles by Alpha Wave Movement last updated 08/24/08
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