Various Artists Echoes Living Room Concerts Vol 6

Echoes describes itself as a national daily radio programme of contemporary instrumental music. Sounds great- if only we could have that sort of programme in the UK I hear you think. The trouble is that what they effectively mean would be described in the UK as New Age or even World Music. Most of it would make the typical SMD customer reach for the sick bag. All the tracks were recorded live in various people's living rooms and are unique to this disc. Given the majority styles of music found on the disc why on earth are we bothering to review it? Well the answer is that one of the unique tracks is called 'Shrouded' and is by Ian Boddy, and superb it is too. It commences with whooshes of sound and dark drones. A rich deep sequence emerges from the swirling brew. Cosmic effects abound. The sounds chosen are exquisite. We then get a loop made of what sounds like someone walking through a mixture of gravel and broken glass- believe me it works well. Its all very atmospheric but there is loads going on- no aimless ambient drift here. Actually the track appears very out of place on this CD- thank goodness. Most UK customers of SMD probably won't have heard of many of the other artists on this disc except Jeff Pearce whose 'Lattice of Memory' opens the album and is certainly one of the better moments found here and the Tim Story / Roedelius collaboration 'A broken Alphabet' which is basically like a piece of chamber music for Piano and what sounds like a cello. Of the other tracks some are full of Eastern Promise / ethnic instruments such as Suzanne Teng (sound like early Steve Jolliffe actually), Mizuyo Komiya , Rasa (I quite liked this one) and Coyote Oldman. Others are 'oh so lovely' pure New Age tracks from artists like The Coulter / Phillips Ensemble, Michael Brook and Djivan Gasparyan, Michael Mandrell, Preston Reed and William Watson (a guaranteed puker). Then there is the Native American music from Mark Hunton. (DL)

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