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.74 (2004) by Maitreya
| Artist: | Maitreya |
|---|---|
| Label: | Council of Nine |
Not unlike Biosphere's Geir Jenssen or BJ Nilsen, Maitreya's Simon Lomax creates moving ambient pieces which continuously develop to become ever more evocative as each track progresses, eventually building to extremely strong and pertinent collections of atmospheric moments. But his blend of atmospheric ambient relies almost entirely on electronic textures to suggest the atmospheric setting of his compositions, which results in his music often appearing more austere and isolationist. Simon Lomax first appeared at the tail end of the nineties with From The Mothership, an album which, as well as establish his music project, Maitreya, also launched Council Of Nine, which he co-founded with graphic artist Kama Glover. Although its release remained largely confidential, From The Mothership generated interest across an unusually large section of the press thanks to Lomax's deep-space-inspired soundscapes and powerful musical narrative. Four years in the making, Maitreya�s sophomore album, Telluric Waves, was a much more adventurous and imaginative record. Abandoning space, Lomax was, with this album, bringing his project back down to Earth, providing further evidence of the uncompromising beauty of his music. Unlike its predecessor, .74 took just a year to materialise. Inspired by location and time, Lomax appears to explore the notion of fluidity, articulating each track around a particular theme, yet putting it in relation to the rest of this record to create a consistent thread throughout. If From The Mothership was space and Telluric Waves was Earth, .74 is undoubtedly air. With great swathes of sounds, Lomax unveils vast spaces and intimate corners on which he places subtle touches of colours, as on the melancholic opening track, Escent, on which a lonely violin adds textures to a gently moving backdrop of vaporous sounds. Elsewhere, on Pulse & Beat, he gives some relief to waves of warm analogue strings by injecting clouds of static noises and gentle rhythmic pulsations. But Lomax also at times appears to let his music drift away all by itself, as if he was taken on a hypnotic journey through to the heart of sound. From these ever-changing soundscapes, on which no external element appear to ever interfere, Lomax manages to create an extremely consistent soundtrack, which is, at times, reminiscent of mid-seventies Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. Although .74 resembles its predecessor a lot, it also confidently reasserts the scope of Maitreya and that of Lomax�s sound experimentations. Yet, because the focus is almost entirely set on the atmospheric nature of these tracks, .74 fails to deliver in quite the same way as Telluric Waves, but this is not to say that it lacks depth or direction, and therefore remains overall a spectacular release.
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