Lightwave
Cantus Umbrarum
Lightwave has become known for deep, cavernous ambience, and they are really taking that literally with their latest musical endeavor. As the liner notes describe, it was composed for a massive sound installation in some French caverns in 1997. The result is trademark Lightwave, lots of experimentation with music as texture, filled with echoes, crunching noises, water sounds, serene ambient music, and French narration. The blending of abstract noise with music reminds me of Biosphere's 'Substrata' CD, although the end result is quite different. As with prior Lightwave releases, there is very little melody, and the intent was not to create something particularly accessible.

It is more like an artistic impression, an abstract painting using sound as colours. The music conveys the depth of the caverns effectively. Most of the fifteen tracks are quite short, but the first full track, 'The Mirror of Shades', runs over ten minutes, and is a strong opener, blending most of the musical elements that appear throughout. Unfortunately, I found the narration distracting. Perhaps if I remembered more of my French from college, I'd appreciate it more in the context of the music.

'Such A Delicate Music in the Woods' reverts to English, with someone simply saying "there is a cave" surrounded by chamber music. Most of the voices are male, though a French female voice appears midway through this track. The voices reach the height of silliness on 'Down Down Down', with someone saying this in English to open the track, starting higher in pitch and working his way down. It sounds very clichéd.

Most tracks have some sort of narration interspersed with the music, though the latter half of the CD does focus more on the music. My guess is that this music may have played out better for audience members actually in the caves. Some of the ambient and chamber music passages are interesting, particularly in the later tracks. However, this is a difficult listen, and will have limited, specific appeal to fans of very unusual sound experiments. (PD)

This page is part of a frame set. If you can't see the information strip to the left of the screen then click on the smd logo above.