BODDY, IAN/MARKUS REUTER 
914398
CD
DISTANT RITUAL

AMBIENT (SYNTH)

For this album UK synth music pioneer Ian Boddy has teamed up with German guitarist Markus Reuter, so you might guess that you can expect something different from the label yet again, and you would be right. Reuter is a member of Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft academy and a member of the eclectic Europa String Choir. He’s an electric guitarist, but not your normal electric guitarist - oh no - this guy creates huge flowing soundscapes that are a ‘Ambient’ or ‘Synth’ fan’s dream. Playing 8 string touch guitar, Reuter bends notes and blends tones with Ian Boddy's sublime atmospherics, and it’s a vast sounding music, full of multi-textured, multi-faceted layers of gorgeous sound textures that will take you to heaven and back. So, imagine a guy who can do all of this, playing 56 minutes worth of ‘Ambient’ music with someone of the calibre of Ian Boddy, whose emerging talents as one of the finest ambient music sound sculptors around, are gaining him ever more recognition, and you have an album that is nothing short of mind-blowing in its beauty, originality and accessibility. There are 7 creative compositions and improvisations on this set, all with an immensity of sound that is quite breathtaking - A complete album of truly original soundscapes and varied landmarks that is nothing else than a total success from start to finish. Just watch the goose bumps rise as dense dark cloudscapes give way to luminous bliss in this fascinating collaboration - More from this pairing please!

The opening track is ‘A Beginning In Light’, and with it’s distant organ-like undercurrent and encroaching layers of synth and textured guitars, it gives you the feeling of every cosmic music classic from the early Cosmic Jokers to modern Hypnos or Fax label releases - A brilliant cosmic intro to what turns out to be a truly amazing opening track. What makes this even more of an enjoyable album as a whole, is the fact that - shock, horror - they do use rhythms in the music on a couple of tracks, albeit slow, yet solid percussive/synth layers that only serve to enhance the melodic quality of the music and provide sufficient variation to keep you hooked for the duration. The combination of Boddy's synths and drum samples with Reuter's soaring, effectively used and beautiful electric guitar textures on track 3: ‘Trace The Memory’ in particular is just one of the highlights on an album that oozes passion, atmosphere, grace and quality, and at just nine minutes, it’s a track that would have been equally enjoyable at three times that length. The title track presents a setting of richly textured synths and almost Fripp-like guitar textures that flow and drift with great sensitivity and strength - One of those soundscapes you just can't get enough of!  Track 5 is ‘Presentation Of An Offering’, another rhythmic job, this time combining all the elements of melody, space and texture within a rhythmic framework that almost has a drum 'n' bass quality to it, and it’s all the better for it too. The final two tracks ‘Voices Of Doubt’ and ‘A Delicate Re-enactment’ are back to ethereal, celestial multi-textured space music epic time, with lots of that style of flowing layers that really transport you off into another universe.

Weight: 150.00 g