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review by Bill Binkelman It was on the third or fourth listen to this, the second album from Cameron Akhunaton (a.k.a. Magic Sound Fabric) that it hit me why I like his music so much and why it rises above more pedestrian efforts in the ambient dub/chill-out genre. It's how he uses his synth strings and background keyboards. He layers them underneath the infectious beats and main synths in such as way that no matter what the song's main thrust is, it always has a cinematic "feel" to it. This perception hit me so strongly that as I would walk around listening to tracks like the stellar opening title number I started imagining "If I were a film-maker, would I use this over the opening or closing credits?" One of the downsides of current-day electronica can be how disposable and inconsequential it all can sound after a while. While Freedom Star will not change the way you hear music or anything fundamental like that, it will stick with you a lot longer than a lot of the other releases in this genre. Part of that is the music itself, which seamlessly integrates flowing synths, spacemusic textures, dub and chill beats, and accessible refrains to create cohesive wholes that unwind purposefully over an average duration of seven minutes, always somewhat evolving from the starting point without losing sight of the origin. The other element that exists not just here but on every Spiralight Recordings CD I have heard so far is the exemplary engineering and production - it is simply textbook, using panning, stereo separation, and center channel mixing to perfection, and also featuring superb instrumentation. On a personal note, I really dig the "SF" angle of tracks like the sparkly retro synths meets tribal beats/drum and bass of "We Are All Connected" and its sultry female spoken word sample. "Suns of Sun" crosses over into mysterious flowing minor washes/tones and buzzing spacy synths all over the place, anchored by pulsing bloops and bleeps and sequenced beats set against a here-and-gone-again funky backbeat. If you, like me, once watched sci-fi films like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, how can you not groove out on songs with titles like "Flight of the Purple Energetics" and "Risen City of Electro?" The quasi-glitch rhythms on "I Am The Wave" percolate under both retro and contemporary synths and jump-start your synapses until you can't resist tapping your hands, your feet, or whatever else your brain says to "Start moving, dammit!" Over a relatively short period of time Spiralight Recordings has developed an unbroken winning streak of releasing superlative ambient and electronica recordings and Freedom Star builds upon and expands this budding legacy. Labels like Waveform better watch their rearview mirrors, 'cause Cameron Akhunaton (who heads up the label, by the way) is closing in a Porsche 911, and he's only in third gear but closing fast. Freedom Star gets a cosmic thumbs up from this space cowboy! Yee hah! |
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