FUTURE MUSIC CORP

Lost in the Stars

FutureMusicCorp (2003)

Sorry - no album cover at this time

review by Dene Bebbington

Here's a self-released CD of spacemusic from a relative newcomer to the music scene who has mainly made his material available through the Internet. The person behind FutureMusicCorp is Mike65, a man living in Ireland who, until 1999, hadn't created music and hasn't had any formal music training. That's not a major disadvantage when it comes to ambient and spacemusic as Lost in the Stars is a worthy offering. Sometimes you can tell this is the work of relatively inexperienced musician, but on the whole it works very well.

Comprising thirteen tracks ranging from over two minutes to a little over eleven minutes long, the sounds mostly keep the listener's imagination somewhere in space, although a few tracks are more down to earth. Lost in the Stars also adds to the count of albums which use voice footage from space missions, something that has become rather cliched now in the world of instrumental music.

From the first listen, I was impressed with this album. The opening track, "Nebulea," is classic spacemusic with reverbing synth washes moving across the soundscape conveying a real sense of being in space and beholding celestial marvels such as nebula. The tone of the sounds is neither light nor dark, the mood is mostly reverential, contemplative, and even slightly majestic. Breaking the mould of drifting flowing spacemusic are some tracks with rhythms, and also some with syncopated effects - such as "Montezuma" which brought to mind a piece from a Vangelis album I'm unable to recall the name of.

One piece that particularly struck me is "City at Night." It combines a pensive rhythm with wind sounds from which arise the distant sound of sirens which mainly stay merged with the wind effects - it's cleverly done.

Let's hope that FutureMusicCorp makes a proper CD release in future. Lost in the Stars is well worth getting hold of. It demonstrates that Mike65 is an artist with talent whose best work is probably yet to come.