RICH, ROBERT/IAN BODDY
753483
CD
OUTPOST (USA & UK UNITE FOR THIS SPECIAL PROJECT)
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AMBIENT (SYNTH)’Outpost’ is the first collaboration between British Synthesist Ian Boddy and American recording artist Robert Rich. Both have been involved in electronic music for over 20 years, but they have travelled very different musical paths. Rich is best known for his many releases on the USA based Hearts of Space, Hypnos and Relapse labels. Boddy's numerous electronic albums on his Something Else Records label garnered respect throughout Europe during the same period. Together, Rich and Boddy have concocted a mysterious blend of fluid electronic rhythms and impressionistic Sci-Fi soundscapes. With tools ranging from vintage and modern analogue modular synthesisers, prepared piano, metallic percussion, feedback networks and digital signal processing, the two musicians have crafted a sonic journey to the remote edge of a future, lost civilisation. Unlike most other "virtual" long-distance collaborations, this duo preferred to work together in the same space, allowing musical ideas to flow between them spontaneously. Full of surprising transitions and dynamic extremes, ‘Outpost’ shows these two veteran recording artists stretching their music into new vocabularies. Four sections of the album feature pulsing rhythms from Rich's MOTM modular synthesizer, while Boddy departs from his normally electronic voicings with abstract textural interludes performed on a 1925 vintage baby grand. Interwoven with NASA broadcasts, ionospheric radio whistlers, Boddy’s extreme meta-synth excursions, and Rich's signature steel guitar. ‘Outpost’ is an album that promises to take the listener to a new sonic terrain; it is wholly original and unlike anything turned out by either artist individually, but after a few airings it really does deliver!
The first track on this 10 track, fifty-eight minute collaboration is strangely enough: ‘First Outpost’, and it lasts for just over a minute and then segues directly into the longer (eight minute) 2nd track entitled ‘Ice Fields’, the result being a total of nearly ten minutes of what you might call “exploratory ambience with percussives” (which are actually synths I presume) ‘tinkling and clanking’ and combined with a sort of doppler feedback effect that sounds more like a processed electric guitar – and to my surprise, it really is, and it sounds just superb. The pictures slowly mutates into an almost dub rhythm, although it’s really too slow for that, while the keyboards paint a canvas with all these layers and textures, threatening to break the whole lot out into a trot at any minute, as the clanking percussives move to the fore, then back again. They sound all kind of ethnic and ambient without being what you’d call ‘familiar’ – but the more you listen to it, the warmer it becomes. Unlike ‘Methane’, the near four-minute 3rd track that is positively chilling (as opposed to chilled!), with an icy atmosphere fixed to the slow (and I mean slow) moving mix of subtle synth ambience, bass resonances and more percussive clanking. Track 4 is ‘Reflection Pools’, and it feels more structured, with pulsing bass-synth rhythms spreading across a spectrum of tonal colours, as string and choral-like synths flow and weave in and out of the pulsing mix - All quite pleasant after the icy wastes of the openers! Without a break, it moves straight into the 5th track: ‘Link Lost’, whereupon a river of amorphous celestial synths introduces what turns out to be a supremely celestial space-music composition that inhabits territories both light and dark, as it progresses through its ten minutes of bliss. Again, moving straight into track 6: ‘Moments Unrest’, where the dark space sounds are replaced with rolling electronic rhythms, deep pounding bass and a gorgeous string-synth texture, as electronics, swoop, soar and chatter all around the mix. Gradually building and becoming ever louder, the music falls back to its original languid state for the rest of its near seven minutes, down-tempo, chill-out journey - Yet again, it is original and hypnotic music. You would swear that track 7: ‘Turning In’ will be pure space music, until, at close on three minutes, a massive prepared piano chord rings out, bell-like, and the whole mood becomes a lot darker, as the combination of piano chords, deep, minimalist synth backdrops and stuttering electronic ‘rhythms’ paint a positively unnerving scenario. So, we segue straight into track 8 and here you get ‘Turning Out’, the first real cosmic piece (in that the rhythms are largely absent) of the album, and it’s a most addictive sea of dark, eerie, crystalline synth layers. Without a break it’s straight into track 9: ‘Edge Of Nowhere’ where a slow but deep sequencer rhythm starts up, accumulates and eventually pretty well gallops through the piece, while a warm surround-sound style synth atmosphere envelops and covers the sky with waves of pure pleasure that turn out as good a soundscape as any you’ll hear, with the combination of rhythm and string layers working together perfectly. Finally, the album ends with a couple of minutes of dark-wave space music in ‘Last Outpost’, where the minimal atmospheres are joined by what sounds like a distant short-wave radio and assorted percussive clankings, almost ending the album as it began, and it’s all quite mesmerising. Conclusion: This is new music that grows in stature with every listen. It’s not ‘easy’ by any means, but then you wouldn’t really expect that from either of these guys, would you? – But it is good.
Weight: 150.00 g
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