A Produce
Inscape and Landscape
I have known of A produce for some years but have never searched them out thinking that they were sub standard drone merchants. How wrong could I be! It is actually very hard to describe their music, yes some bits do lean towards traditional ambient but I wouldn’t really class the music as that because they dare to do things that conventional ambient acts wouldn’t. Sure they have all the descriptive power and atmosphere of ambient music but it goes beyond that. I seem to be going on about sounds a lot in this edition of the mag but as sound sculptures A produce are one of the very best. Their music comes over as Electronic and they do use synths but they also use conventional instruments, though some of them are a tad obscure such as mallets, cavern and doom drums,, shriek guitar, tesla ray and ghost piano. You wouldn’t guess some of the instruments weren’t electronic however because of the way they are used and recorded.

A long bell tone reverberates then we then get a metallic sequence / loop which combines with a flute and very subtle guitar lead to create a piece of music of great beauty, longing and tension. ‘Sea of Breath’ tells you all you need to know in the title. Imagine the sea rolling in but with waves sounding as if they are someone's final breath echoing time after time on the shore with a melancholy, vaguely melodic lead accompanying it. ‘The Mystic Circle’. is an atmospheric piece with a gentle melodic quality bringing up images of a hot misty morning. Admittedly ‘first glimpse’ does sound less electronic than most of the other tracks and also has tribal influences so if you’re not into this sort of thing I would program it out as it would be a shame not to have such a superb ‘sound freak’ CD just because of one track. ’The Hidden Observer’ uses hypnotic cyclical percussion to provide the backbone to the track over which sighs the lead line. The main melody is introduced half way through bringing to mind lazy summer days. ‘Isua’ features the low resonating sound of a didgereedoo, creating the backdrop over which a blistering lead sound (the shriek guitar?) sweeps low then soars back high again but it keeps returning to even greater effect each time.

‘The ‘Golden Needle’ starts with a brilliant guitar riff over lonesome synth pads. This track is absolutely exquisite, the guitarist coaxing the most amazing emotions from the strings, wonderful stuff. ‘Choir of Industry’ again covers what you need to know about it in the title. Choir effect wordless vocal samples hover over a non intrusive industrial backing. ‘Empty Pause’ is full of malevolent atmos, not one to listen to with the lights out. Finally we have the sixteen minute ‘Dwell 2’ which is basically the full version of the bell tones track we got just a minute of at the beginning of the CD. Just chill out and float. A wonderful way to finish the CD. (DL)

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