ZERO OHMS AND

BRANNAN LANE

Immense Distance

SpaceForMusic.com Records (2003)

Sorry - no album cover at this time

review by Bill Binkelman

Immense Distance is seriously spacious music - not necessarily spacemusic, but definitely spacious music. The pace of the album is positively Zen-like. Zero Ohms' (a.k.a. Richard Roberts) flutes and wind-synths, and Brannan Lane's bells, percussion, and treatments, traverse this stark yet sublimely beautiful musical terrain with glacial patience.

Reverberations from Lane's bells on the first track, "Flows Adrift," seem to hang suspended in the air for a mini-eternity. Strange rustlings in the background are echoed deeply, imparting an almost cavernous sense of endless subterranean distances. Roberts' flutes waft wisp-like in the air. How he elicited such subdued notes is a marvel. Subtle water sound effects between the first and second track ("On a Cosmic Sea") present an evocative bridge. More pronounced flutes (when compared to the previous song) surface, one being a Native American flute and the other, I think, is Roberts' wind-synth. Lane's percussion here includes deep gong-like bells, which flavor the song with spices of the Far East or India. Subtle drones in the background provide a soft undercurrent to the sensual and spiritual flute melodies. The journey is less than halfway done on this excellent album, which is an essential one for lovers of deep meditative soundscapes and electro-acoustic minimalism.

Only one track on Immense Distance is less than ten minutes long, so each track is given ample time to develop. The music appears to continues uninterrupted for the six songs, (although, on close inspection, there may be a slight silence between some of the time cues), yet there are discernible (but not distractingly so) transitions from one piece to the next. The overall cohesiveness of the CD itself is considerable. I played the album a number of times all the way through and it sounds great when absorbed as a "whole."

The movement into the more percussive opening of the title track (third cut on the album) is handled with grace, so that the gently muted drums do not intrude, but seem to just flow out of the music with natural ease. High-pitched bells are struck and sustained, echoing into the "immense distance" of the title, it would seem. A tinwhistle floats delicately over the percussion and bells, carrying with it just a hint of Celtic or Irish influence (only partly though, since the other components of the song tend to ground it elsewhere). In fact, there is also the evocation of the Far East here. As I alluded to in my earlier comments, calling the album "Zen-like," I consider Immense Distance more closely aligned with Eastern minimal music, such as the unheralded release from Honoka, Water Spirits, than with spacemusic or even ambient music. With that comment, I don't want all those ambient purists out there to prematurely judge against Immense Distance, because if they do, they're missing a deeply satisfying and spiritual listening experience. On the other hand, fans of the currently popular type of drone music, or more overtly electronic ambient recordings, may not know what to make of the considerable presence of Zero Ohms's flutes. I, for one, am ecstatic that he has decided to emphasize his wonderful wind instrument talents. On past releases, I always wished for more of this from him.

Even more world music textures are added to the next track, "On the Currents of Sound," thanks to Gordon Rhyne's electric tambura. Zero Ohms' bansuri flute hangs like a cloud of incense, while Lane's gentle bells twinkle like emerging stars against a inky-black sky. Birdsong is folded into the music later in the track, gently painting the music in daylight colors, as if the sun was rising with deliberate slowness, tinting the sky in muted shades of violet and blue. A purer "ambient/spacemusic" vibe is present on "Into the Nth," through the predominance of synths, both as sampled ethereal choruses and as more abstract washes and effects. This cut may strike some listeners as a variation on a theme by Liquid Mind, as it has some of that same cloud-like "feel," although the music eventually moves into a more pronounced spacemusic vein, as the electronic whooshes and some of the underlying drones are less "warm." Still, this is not in the least bit dark (or even neutral). Instead, the track strips the music of any "earthly" pretense and sends it out into the deep blackness of the space.

We're in the zone between space and Earth on the album closer,"In the Next Future." The track mirrors, somewhat, the first song. Echoed rustlings, deep but muted drones, and reverse-tape effects all coalesce into a mysterious and shadowy whole. While not genuinely disturbing at all, this is the least "musical" piece on the album. However, it still maintains the recording's "vibe" of patience. While not beautiful in the traditional sense of the word, there is a sense of calm to the drones and treatments that reinforces the theme of the album, as befits a recording's last track.

Immense Distance reinforces my ardent belief that ambient music is not always just about electronics. While there are wind-synths, textures and treatments on this recording, it is Zero Ohms' flutes and Lane's bells that turn the trick. Here is a recording that takes the listener by the hand and walks him/her patiently through a Zen garden before sitting him/her gently at the edge of the reflecting pool, there to pause and ponder in the fading light of a warm afternoon that eventually becomes the purple glow of twilight. While one track does evoke the farthest reaches of the cosmos, the majority of Immense Distance holds up a mirror to the infinite recesses of our inner selves. Here is an album to completely immerse yourself in - drink deeply and be refreshed.