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.
4.1 |
