Robert Schroeder SphereWare CD / 9 tracks / 76.29 mins

'Access to Dreams' is an excellent way to start the album. Exquisite reverberating, swirling and pulsating sounds and a looped piano melody echo into the distance as if calling out, hoping for an answer. The underlying pads get darker and increasingly ominous as we progress. 'A Quarter of an Hour' lasts, appropriately, for fifteen minutes! Imaginative title aside though, this is an excellent track, one of the best on the album. Crackling electronics give way to ringing tones. The whole feel of the track is shimmering and warm - like looking out on to a desert landscape. Ethereal pads sigh over the top. Little cosmic guitar licks float from the speakers like a heat haze. An excellent thick squelchy sequence starts up (taking me back to Robert's 80s work) and a steady rhythm comes to join it. The wonderful guitar gradually becomes a little more strident, taking the lead role but still in a fairly laid back way. After the half way mark a cracking synth solo replaces the guitar.

'Data Stream' fizzes into life. Soon a shuffling rhythm picks up the pace creating quite a groove, lovely little melodies bouncing over the top. Further rhythm is added. This is really infectious stuff that should get you beating out time with your hands and nodding pleasantly. Incredibly, if anything, this track is even better than its predecessor. A delicate melody floats out then 'Solar Panels' really gets into full swing with looped percussion and rapid questing sequence. In then comes a slow but powerful lead line. It's full of wonder but also from time to time a hint of melancholy or even angry menace. 'Illuminated Signs' and '100% Synthetic' are pleasant and 'OK' I suppose but not as good as the other tracks on the album. Personally I would have left them out, as the running time of the CD would still have been over an hour even without them. 'Dancing Clouds' is far better than the rather naff title. An excellent rhythm forms a firm base around which a couple of lead lines shimmer and bounce in a most mesmerizing manner, coming and going, allowing moody little sonic embellishments to conjure spells all of their own. Another very fine piece. A melodic bass line punctuated by solar flare type shimmers gets 'Flying Saucers' underway. A cool rhythm strikes up, backed by mellotron and the most exquisite of mournful leads. The beats become increasingly dominant but overall the feel is still laid back, oozing a subtle beauty and a relaxed calm. We finish with the title track and it's another one of the very best. From a sea of cosmic twitters a slow mournful melody emerges. This is underpinned by yet more ethereal 'tron'. An excellent no nonsense rhythm adds structure. This develops and really starts to kick providing a superb contrast with the delicate mellotron and moody lead. What a superb album this is. All those who thought we had long since heard the best from Robert had better think again. (DL)

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