Aquavoice

Artists: Aquavoice
P: 2008
Calm electronic clouds are forming and gathering slowly. Then there appear some half-nature, half-electronic sounds. This is how this enthralling album begins. After a while additional tonal spheres are to be heard, they are always colored and layered over one another with a fabulous sense of atmosphere. We are strolling through a forest and then become entangled in mysterious green depths; the sounds are on the one hand doubtless electronic, whilst, on the other hand, they seem to be so close to nature... Until the end of the third impression Aquavoice leads us through dreamy landscapes with his gently flowing, fabulous ambient combined with ambitious, indeed visually suggestive relaxing music; with the fourth piece, there comes a slow, majestic ostinato, to which some melancholic piano chords and fascinating synthetic sparks ceaselessly cling - if it still be ambient, then only to such an extent, to which we are dealing with this genre in Klaus Schulze's "Blanche".
Weird, murky, jarring fifth miniature puts an end to the dominating becalming mood, but in the final part it brings some very soft woven, optimistic chords, distorted through such surrealistic filters as those appearing in Sylvie Marks' "Baby I'm Electric". Until the very end of the album we are surrounded with a slightly-electronized piano-contemplative mood, softly and yet interesting intermingling with recurring nature sounds and additional tonal sweeps which enlarge the room to feel this music.
One may obviously recognize influences of Harold Budd, Brian Eno, Tetsu Inoue (especially on the splendid twelfth track!) as well as those of Michael Stearns and even (the utmost contemplative) Kitaro; Aquavoice manages nonetheless to serve all his musical ideas in a fresh, fascinating and, last but not least, convincing way.
"Cold" is a very specific, soothing and nevertheless challenging and even disturbing variety of ambient music, whereby Aquavoice uses tonal systems which are characteristic also for other sophisticated - and not so abstract - electronic genres.
All in all, this is a highly recommended album.

Artists: Aquavoice
P: 2009
The album, “Memories”, provides the listener with yet more fascinating moods, some of them quite surprising, some of them ingeniously suggestive and associative, as if taken directly from some surreal dream.
Analogue, digital and computer tones get mixed into one melange together with assorted nature sounds and additional sample loops. What kind of music is this, actually? Hard to say indeed, insofar as Aquavoice's impressions stretch out over typical classifications, as far as melodies, arrangements, structures and moods are concerned...
The dynamic piece “News of the World” bears some resemblance to moods created by the New Composers from St. Petersburg, whereas the next piece, “Nostalgy”, brings with the loop-pattern of a dusty sliding turntable some memories in sepia brown: Is it some familiar place from the Listener's childhood, or is it the fabulous Everglades-park? In any case, here we are dealing with probably the most beautiful piece in the whole “Memories”-set. Still, the crunchy freezing nostalgia of sleepy electronic bits in “Dancing Snowflakes” or jazzy relaxing chords of “Autumn”, dry-leaf-like sifted through the sleeping hourglass, while the rain is still pouring outside, are equally fascinating and sound equally fresh.
Track 5: Mysterious meanders of „Labyrinth” get marked with percussive sips leading to further confusing scrubheads lurking in the vibraphone weather. We take a walk through a deserted old town as soon as “Tycho B.” begins, here we are dealing with electronic moods quite similar to those conjured up by Tangerine Dream on the “Flashpoint”-soundtrack, and still coming from some thoroughly different dimension.
“Old Ship” is one of the most abstract pieces on the CD; disintegrated in associative, freefalling tones, it fascinates with its overall mouldiness. Then comes the title-track and the Listener can arrange some long forgotten photos, to read some new, rattling and chirping meanings out of them.
„Loneliness” balances on the edge of lonely sadness and lonely bliss. And what is hiding there, in these odd spongy pipelines, leading to a grayish cloud of fluorescent cotton far away in the “North”?... Listen...
Part Two of “News of the World” seems to be a picture with no frame – or perhaps a frame without a picture – a tiny mood of quiet beats scattered around, a puzzle left on the table, which can be seen only in the mirror... Perhaps it is this very “Mirror”, to which the last piece on the album was dedicated: We discover, that the room-reality and the mirror-reality are two quite different worlds; we notice the most significant discrepancies, while we stroll to the abstract rhythm of the hourglass-ambience.