Robert Scott Thompson
At the Still Point of the Turning World
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CD / 12 tracks / 69.06 mins

This is another 'Hypnos' label release. I recently reviewed a CD by Numina on the same label and thought it was 'spiritual' ambient of the highest quality. I therefore looked forward to popping on the headphones. Here goes. 'Of mirrored air' opens with melancholy pads and drones. High register strings soar over the mix and the sound of a heavily processed guitar adds melodic detail; Eno and Fripp come to mind. The atmosphere is hypnotic but with a slightly edgy and unsettled feel. A good opener.

A beautiful 'tron melody and dark drone usher in 'Casual connecting principle'. Brief moments of silence punctuate the pulsing melody, this is haunting stuff that would have fitted onto 'Phaedra' happily. Various accent sounds/effects and snatches of melody weave around the mix. At the 3 minute mark a mournful picked acoustic guitar part is heard. The mood becomes more menacing as the track develops. Icy pads, synth bells and faintly choral sounds signal our arrival at 'Airports for shadows and dust'. Melodic duties are handled by acoustic piano as the synthetic brew simply bubbles across the soundscape. Lovely. 'A theory of place' is dark and brooding, with processed electric guitar and growling drones. Icy strings add a tense note in the heavens. Robert Scott Thompson can certainly create and maintain atmosphere. Very track on the CD could easily accompany a film, Sci-Fi or tense thrillers come to mind. 'Presences' opens with abstract sounds, processed voices and what sounds like a broken Balalika! Unsettling and strange I felt that this track belonged on the soundtrack to the film 'Seven' – if you've seen it you'll know what the atmosphere is like. Strange chattering sounds, like electronic insects!, and various drones suggest another unsettled atmosphere as we move into 'Water out of sunlight'. Warmer pads move into the mix, alongside faint bell-like tones and the mood lifts – in fact there's a whiff of Vangelis here in 'Chariots of Fire' mode (no sequences or percussion of course!). The track becomes quite symphonic and melancholy. The 'tron makes a welcome return for 'When dreams collide'. The track has a beautiful, spartan melody played on a high register string type sound that is just superb – how a musician can do so much with so few notes is incredible, a lesson to us all! After 3 minutes of this glorious section we get choirs and more foreboding drones.

Sinister clangs and an isolated acoustic piano open 'At the still point of the turning world' – beauty and dissonance seem to be battling it out. Fizzing drones rise and fall, an electric storm hovers in the background and dies. Again, Robert Scott Thompson is creating highly descriptive music. 'Tinted in temporal hue' needs to be heard on headphones! Drones come up in one ear and then die only to be answered by drones in the other ear! Odd but very effective. The track itself moves between unsettled drone and distorted vocal sample-based passages and lighter choral/symphonic moments – a brooding number. 'After … afterthought' is a very short track, it continues the atmosphere of its predecessor. Vast analogue sounds open, rather appropriately, 'Melting through inches of mercury'. Trademark melancholy, Satie-like piano is added – a beautiful track that I could have listened to for much longer than its 4.2 min running time. Luckily, Robert Scott Thompson continues in the same vein with the closing cut 'Figured in the drift of stars'. We get more piano and celestial pads. However, dark drones and abstract effects do add a more unsettled counterpoint to the grace of the central melody. This is darker in mood than the Numina CD, but the quality is just as high. If you want to try 'traditional' ambient (no beats/sequences) this label would appear to be ideal. (WP).

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