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review by Bill Binkelman I admire what Kurt Michaels attempts on Inner Worlds Part One (based on the notes that come with the CD when it's purchased), i.e. craft a true concept album ("concept" in the purest sense, not in a melodic thematic cohesive way). Once I read his "Cliff Notes," I had a better understanding of where he was headed with these tracks (covering genres like shimmering and eerie spacemusic, warm new age, spacerock, ethno-tribal beats, dark ambient soundscapes, and just plain weird music). However, at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite (since I usually applaud liner notes that help flesh out an album), it's a little disappointing that a listener might need a "guide" in order to understand an album or appreciate it. With all that said, I found parts of Inner Worlds to my liking. "Heaven?" the first track (and the longest one at fourteen and a half minutes) is a deliciously different type of spacemusic, sometimes shimmering and ethereal and other times veering over into darker inky blackness and disturbing textures (especially when a distorted woman's voice is heard in the background singing something indecipherable but that sounds like it's from Twin Peaks). Michaels' synth work here borders on brilliant, as he weaves together his drones and washes yielding music that attracts even while it cautions. "Nightmare Crossing Over," the next selection, is another winner, opening with overt EM burbles and organ-like tones, then bringing in effervescent twinkling synth bells and ringing triangles (engineering in this passage is terrific, the high notes sparkle like sonic diamonds). At the two-minute mark, amidst the more cosmic sounds, Michaels folds in pounding tribal percussion on an assortment of hand drums, shakers, and the like. The, he surprised me by bringing the twinkling notes back for a second go round. I was, frankly, amazed at how well these two disparate elements meshed. Who woulda thunk it? I also found most of "Alien Presence" to my liking, with its semi-experimental drifting dark ambient bell tones and dronish textures (although on headphones, the soundfield is almost disconcertingly wide, to such a degree that I took my headphones off because I thought what I was hearing was "outside" my 'phones). That's serious crafty engineering, folks! Of the remaining four selections, I can't say anything really caught fire with me like the first three songs. There's the title track, which marries subdued electric guitar licks with an undercurrent of reverse tape-loops, dark textures/noise effects, and later strangeness (distorted vocals, ramped amp processed guitar walings, odd percussion effects, and all of it muted in the background into some kind of abstract ambient soup, as it were). "The Village" which (per the artist) is a tribute/homage inspired by the cult TV show, The Prisoner, works fine as a disturbing shadowy ambient number at its start, but when Michael throws in the English brass and string band playing in the background and then veers over into more overt abstract tonalities and noodlings, I lost interest. Again, I know where he's going with this, but it feels over the top. "You Don't Say" is a short (3:19) slice of blitzkrieg-ish spacerock, with trap kit drums, electric guitar that careens every which way in an assault of noise and feedback, peppered here and there with a dash of cool dark washes of keyboards. Finally, the less I write about a track titled "Nervous Barnyard Afterture and Rebirth" the better. I liked this kind of thing when Pink Floyd did it on Atom Heart Mother, but ending the album with this feels like a joke that I'm not being let in on. Hats off to Kurt Michaels for daring to be this unconventional, and after reading all the positive (if not glowing) reviews on his website, I'll freely admit that I could be one of those clueless fucks who simply doesn't "get it." Michaels does have talent, there's no mistaking it. For adventurous souls, Inner Worlds Part One provides some great voyages into ambient music territory and, depending on your tolerance for discontinuity and bizarreness, some unusual and totally unique sidetrips into cacophony, experimentalism, and other non-associated genres. |
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