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Reviews

Various Artists — Beyond Me
(Neu Harmony NH021, 2001, CD)

by Phil Derby, Published 2002-04-01

Beyond Me Cover art

This compilation is the brainchild of Paul Ellis of Dweller at the Threshold. Twelve diverse tracks are seamlessly merged together into a surprisingly cohesive whole. Beginning with his own track, “Into the Liquid Unknown,” things get off to a quick, bubbly start. The material is almost uniformly strong throughout, so it’s hard to pick the highlights, though one would certainly be “Siloportem” by Nemesis. A thick, classic analog synth sound moves across a bed of catchy rhythms and bass. Equally classic is the Mellotron flute and strings in Free System Projekt’s track “Pharos.” Tangerine Dream fans will be in heaven here. But all is not Berlin School. Robert Carty’s “Outside Influences” includes warped vocoder effects and slow, rumbling tribal beats. This is very cool stuff. Also in a more ambient vein is Dave Fulton’s dreamy floater, “Falling Away.” The musicians hail from everywhere, from America to Europe to New Zealand’s Rudy Adrian. Virtually all of the material is either new to this CD, or a slightly different variant on previously released works. I was particularly excited by the inclusion of a solo track by John Christian of Airsculpture, to my knowledge his first solo work available on CD, and it’s a great one. This is a wonderful overview to the variety of possibilities in contemporary EM.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 24, 2001 releases

Related artist(s): Paul Ellis, Dave Fulton, Rudy Adrian, Stephen Parsick / ['ramp], Various Artists, Kubusschnitt, Robert Carty, Jonathan Block / Synthetic Block

 

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