Perfect space music. The sounds in the first few tracks...well, Matthew Greenwald said it (though the rest of his review makes it sound like he only heard part of the album): "The recording engulfs the listener and captures the feel of space travel, weightlessness, and other sensations vividly." Unfortunately the second side of the album comes a little too close to Earth with (to me) cheesy-sounding guitar in Silver Morning and Weightless. Deep Blue Day and Always Returning are a little too "musical" as well, but are decent tracks. A great album to listen to in darkness!
Makes me feel like I'm escaping earth's gravity...I have listened regularly since buying the CD many years ago, and it continues to transfix me. "An Ending" and "Always Returning" are favorite tracks.
Despite his stoner demeanor, Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin is as thoughtful in conversation as he is on tape. His abstract synthpop outfit's sixth full-length, Replica, is built from snippets of '80s commercials, gauzy loops and an almost-scientific curiosity about what music is. Though he says they're mostly improvised, Lopatin's instrumental meditations feel deliberate. Using DVD compilations of old ads as opposed to user-directed YouTube searches for specific words, Lopatin sought out to create Replica… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
Many years ago, I used to pen a monthly column for eMusic called Sounds Of The Stars, in which I attempted to bridge the gap between astrology and music. I did my best to approximate the sounds of various signs, and to suggest artists that might represent a certain aspect of a sign - even if the artist might not actually be the sign in question. We did a 365-day spin around the sun on… more »
An exquisite experiment, Apollo takes Brian Eno’s spacescapes from albums like Another Green World and arranges them with some heavenly pedal steel guitar by Daniel Lanois. The recording engulfs the listener and captures the feel of space travel, weightlessness, and other sensations vividly. It’s also perhaps Eno’s warmest record ever. In the end, it comes off sounding not unlike a Grateful Dead experiment, with Lanois’ lazy pedal steel sounding quite similar to Jerry Garcia’s playing on David Crosby’s “Laughing.” An excellent nighttime vehicle. – Matthew Greenwald
