Striking Sparks Off the Moon: Home of Tomorrow's Man

Before I get to the review, let’s talk about us for a moment, the acolytes of epic ambient.  Within this realm we audiophiles have an unconditional love of lengthy ear aerobics, opuses that coat the psyche in audio elasticity and synesthetic kinetics that redefine our other senses.  Each of us has a Top 10 of such tracks that morphs as infrequently as the tracks themselves (playlists we’d never hesitate to compile to desert island discs, a feat most frustrating before the iPod Age).

Such unique playlists within such a unique genre experience utterly tectonic shifts, seldom refreshing until a major change in the technology of the genre itself.  This fact is a grand irony given the exponential amount of desktop/drone/ambient/soundscape/etc type music being produced today but, as in all things, an explosion of quantity does not translate to an explosion of quality, and an artistic investment in epic ambient is all too easily misrepresented by caffeinated, programmable diligence realized through automated arpeggiation.  The fact is, even when producing generative pieces or mathematically sequenced sonic loop sculptures, attention and passion for the heart of the details — for the grit and the dirt than had better damned well be hiding beneath every one of those bits and hertz — for the ANALOG of analog — must be microscopic to effectively translate digital effort into any discernible amount of sonic heart and soul.

The previous of these decade-longish, genre-specific tectonic shifts occurred around the (latest) millennium change, likely due to equal parts technology and inspiration.  Within a few short years, we eonistic audiophiles were treated to entries such as Steve Roach’s Slow Heat (1998, 71:16); Brian Eno’s rare classic, I Dormienti (1999, 39:40); Monolake’s Gobi (1999, 36:54); and the Superbowl World Series SciFiCon Master of the Universe Optimus Prime Rib, Robert Rich’s Somnium (2001, 7:00:00).

Post-2003, the genre flagged as it became diluted with beats, clicks (more beats, just shorter and more annoying), and a thousand bedroom jockeys thinking they could distill the best of Brian Eno and Vladislav Delay by creating mashups of various noises and trip hop drumloops every freaking Saturday morning.   They were not correct, and this truth showed by the notable lack of an explosion in interest in the genre.

Fast forward (but very slowly — we’re epic ambient fans after all) to The Present, and at last we can hear and feel and touch the nature, the vitality, the fecundity of the epic ambient genre arc coming ’round again with the nearly hour-long November by James Johnson, a defining piece that is being offered at the time of this writing for the phenomenal price of two dollars for a lossless FLAC instant download (click here or image to visit).

Not only does Johnson provide some much needed revitalization to the overseeded, undertalented epic ambient genre, but the sonic honesty of November qualifies the piece as an easy contemporary of the classics aforementioned.  Johnson composed November (mp3 sample) with the intention of creating an ambient epic that was sparse but resonant; to paraphrase, his effort ‘to create a natural soundscape that would allow the listener to hear further into the distance’ was achieved on this release, and is easily witnessed by the atmosphere and vitality within November that translates throughout the duration of the complex, evolving piece.

With finely timed arrangements and exquisite sound engineering Johnson captures the mathematical diligence and unsettling, shark-like motion of Eno’s Neroli, and lays this rolling undulation beneath an elongated, perpetual layer of processed found sound samples that effectively translate the languid lure of some unknown, teeming space.  Mixed throughout are layer upon layer of sparse, meticulous sonics that deliver a subtle and building counterpoint to the lull of the motion below as the listener submerges.  (Physical translation:  You lay on a bed of cool amber, and as your body heat warms and liquefies the layer you inexorably sink into the dark golden glow, sighing as you prepare to be preserved immortally.)

At the core of the piece is a dulcet, sharply nostalgic, borderline heartbreaking struck tone melody that echoes Laurie Anderson’s devastating Tightrope, a chiming theme that reminds the listener why the piece is named November. This melody, she proposes entropy, a fading threnody that overtakes the warmth of the resonating soundbed thicket each time it cries.

Johnson has spoken of the “need to respect the subtle world of sound,” and he makes his case with November, a piece that does not quickly belie its simplicity, and whispers a chill through its layers as the amber takes hold.

November (FLAC, 52:28) is available via www.james-johnson.net for $2.00