Sante Into Light

It's a tricky thing these days, walking the tightrope of instrumental music genres. If you label yourself as new age, electronic music purists will generally stay far away. If you label yourself as ambient, then the new age masses likely won't even know what you are talking about. Stephanie Santé's CD calls itself "new age ambient", in the hope of attracting both sets, but with the risk of alienating both. Indeed, the first track ‘Airstream’ has a light, bouncy, feel with a bubbly effusiveness sure to appeal to new age fans, even though it does sound very electronic. Lest this dissuade electronic music purists, cue up track two, ‘The Awakening’. Strange primordial echoes and underwater sounds mix together in a darker mood. Then a brisk sequence is joined by lead lines that hearken back to melodic Tangerine Dream around the ‘Le Parc’ era. If this is still not ambient enough for you, ‘Cetacea’ should please with its very crisp sequencing surrounded by thunder and a variety of cool sounds and effects, akin to an alien wail of some sort.

‘Waterdown’ returns to a lighter feel, with crickets and other night sounds combining with shimmering electronics and very warm tone colours. Light or dark, each piece explores very different sound palettes and textures. ‘Aton’ mixes a low bass sequence with strings, gongs, and voice. The effect is moody and melodramatic. In stark contrast ‘Terra's Lullaby’, as the name implies, goes back into new age territory. This one was a little too light for me, seeming to settle for easily recognizable, out-of-the-box patches. But that's ok, because it's followed by perhaps the most daring track, ‘Anasazi’, which has a most unusual vox sound with pitch bend, blended with tribal elements and some nice, deep pads. The percussive sounds are particularly effective here. Similar in feel is ‘3D World’, another successful collage of dark sounds.

‘Archangel’ starts with some wonderful space sounds, but degenerates into purely new age piano, guitars, and female oohs and ahs. Fortunately, this is a momentary diversion on a generally strong album of, to quote the CD cover, "compelling sonic storytelling". Santé's music strikes me as refreshing, at a time when it seems like everyone can be compared to someone else at some level. Occasionally, such as on the very short but very effective piece ‘Emergence’ I'm reminded of Tony Gerber's ability to blend ambient and new age/jazz/pop into a largely successful effort, as he did on ‘Blue Western Sky’. The closing track, ‘Orion's Gift’, reminds me of Robert Carty, a prolific (though still relatively unknown) U.S. space music artist. But for the most part, Santé is an original, which in itself is very commendable. (PD)

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