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Ron Modell / Michael Mantra — Sonic Continuum
(Hypnos hyp1811, 1998, CD)

by Mike McLatchey, Published 2016-04-21

Sonic Continuum Cover art

McLatchey's Second Tier

When it comes to the really, really deep drone ambient ambient albums, a style that is often tagged as "refrigerator hum" due to its symbiotic relationship with silence itself, there are few better than this Hypnos collaboration between synthesists Rod Modell and Michael Mantra. This collaboration in many ways was something more than just music, with the work also being tied into the effects of certain sounds on deep sleep states. The results were two very long pieces with an almost hallucinatory shimmer; the collaboration was so much more than just laying a couple big polyphonic synth patches down and letting them drone, I remember thinking at one point that parts of this could have been the auditory picture of Charon floating his boat down the River Styx. When this one originally came in on promo, it was one of several CDs that was more or less filed in my CD magazine changer permanently — I could easily turn this one on in the evening and let it float all night. Both musicians have made special albums in their own right, but this collaboration was a real triumph for both.

Filed under: New releases, 1998 releases

Related artist(s): Rod Modell, Michael Mantra (Urbanek)

 

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