ZERO OHMS

True Degrees of Freedom

SpaceForMusic (2003)

review by Bill Binkelman

Zero Ohms' has produced what is, in my opinion, his bravest and most immersive recording yet, True Degrees of Freedom. I say bravest because, at times, the "music" on this recording is really just "noise," per se (but what delightful noise it is!) and I use the term immersive because listening to this on headphones in a dark environment is like submerging yourself somewhere else entirely. And I don't mean in the usual ambient or spacemusic way. I mean the sounds and music are so perfectly realized, the mix so enveloping that you will actually start to believe you are somewhere else. Words cannot adequately explain what I'm trying to get across - you'll have to listen to it yourself to understand.

For those of you unfamiliar with Zero Ohms (a.k.a. Richard Roberts), he is a wind-synth (a synthesizer controller played as a wind instrument) and flute player who excels are making textural ambient music from both acoustic sources (his flutes) and manipulated sounds (whether from his wind-synth or his studio wizardry). The latter of these two has a lot to do with the earlier "music" tracks on True Degrees of Freedom, as evidenced immediately on "The Road," the opening song. Get ready for a trip.

This first track will sound like you are standing next to a city road, probably right after it has rained. You will hear cars pass by, horns tooting, tires on wet pavement, car doors open and close, and an occasional Doppler shift tone that is most pleasant. The soundfield is 360 degrees wide (you'll understand what I mean by "immersive" with this piece). Panning of sounds left-to-right and vice versa is handled so realistically that you may find yourself turning your head to "follow the action." Amazingly enough, these are not real environmental sounds. These noises are nearly all from manipulated music, played on synth, and processed somehow to eerily replicate just what I described above. I still don't believe it (well, I actually do, because I trust Roberts not to lie about it). The semi-musical Doppler shift tone lends just enough musicality to the track that "the whole" works brilliantly as pure ambience.

Next, "The Spaceport" is even more immersive - trust me. Here, Roberts uses his wind-synth to layer several delicious warm drones as undercurrents, on top of which you will hear (surrounding you on all sides) the bustle of people at (what else?) a spaceport (well, it's probably an airport, but with the cool futuristic ambient tones of the wind-synth, I can easily imagine I'm awaiting a Mars shuttle flight's departure). The human voices alternate between being quite close and almost discernible to mere distant echoes. These voices are so well-placed in the mix that, when I made the mistake of listening to this track while walking my dog, I kept turning around looking for who the hell was talking behind me! Throughout the track, the drones ebb and flow and subtly shift in intensity, sometimes dominating over the voices, and other times burying way underneath them.

Roberts has told me that the sound of humans talking as a background ambience fascinates him (see my interview with him in this issue for even more detail on this). On "The Spaceport" he convinced me that, in his hands, just the idle chatter of people passing can yield an amazing listening experience.

"The Gate" explores some of the same sonic territory as "The Spaceport" with subtle differences in the drones, which here are more bell-like and rotating in nature. The conversations on this track are less discernible than on the previous song, although one still easily hears laughter and distinguishes the sex and age of some of the people who "pass by." Gradually, besides the warm drones, other musical textures emerge, resembling warm spacemusic washes.

Finally, on the fourth track, "The Inner Mission," we lose most of the sounds of other humans and are enveloped by Roberts' superb floating ambient music played out on his wind-synth. The cosmic beauty of this song reminds me of another Roberts masterpiece (from his album Sweven), "The Poetics of Space." While not as heartrendingly beautiful as that piece (which is a one-in-a-million), "The Inner Mission" is still a perfect soundscape for traveling deep in the backwaters of outer space, watching distant stars and nebula drift by your viewport.

There are three more tracks on this CD, but I would need a lot more words than I can comfortably rely on you reading to adequately describe them, so I'll merely "sketch them" for you. "The Flight" combines wind-synth and Roberts' flutes with guest artist Brannan Lane's percussion and treatments in a nearly thirteen minute excursion into (per Roberts) "psychedelic sound." Don't be put off by the artist's "psychedelic" reference as all the effects are pleasantly spacy and fit in with the swirling flutes and synths perfectly (i.e. no jarring dissonance or cacophony here). "The Arrival" is distinctly minimal with barely there drones and hints of melody buried deep in the mix. Closing out the CD is "The Overlook." Here, Roberts uses only flutes, one to simulate the sound of wind and the other two (quite different in sonic characteristics) in the sublime ways that he excels at (as he does on other recordings, such as Immense Distance). On this last track, the music is almost as thin as the air on top of Everest, yet bright and clear and filled with beauty. Since one of the flutes is a bamboo sub-tone one, you might hear a subtle Asian feel creep into the track, but it's so vaporous that the dominant impact is simply that of music born of peace and stillness. The song is extremely minimal, as Roberts explores the relationship between silence, the sound of wind and the flute notes wafting delicately in the air. It's a perfect way to end this album.

Starting out with the sounds of city life, filled with traffic and people and the bustle of everyday goings-on, we end our trip immersed in solitude and convinced of our isolation and insignificance in the grand scheme of things, yet not in a demeaning way, more as a contentment that we are merely a leaf in a stream, whether the stream be comprised of people, the vastness of the cosmos, or the simple stream of life that encircles our planet. True Degrees of Freedom explores, in depth, our connection to each other and to the universe by laying us bare and exposed to our aloneness and, conversely, our oneness. Heady stuff, indeed, but so very rewarding and so enriching. Roberts is an artist who can take you places well worth visiting. What you find there will be up to you. Highly recommended, of course.