DINO PACIFICI

The Float Zone

Scorpio Rising Music (2004)

review by Dene Bebbington

The latest offering from versatile Canadian artist Dino Pacifici takes the listener on an hour long experience of what is aptly titled The Float Zone. This is fairly hardcore spacemusic with drones and washes that are dark without necessarily being sinister - like the void of outer space. It extends the musical aesthetic in the non-rhythmic tracks of Hallowed Ground in a way that really can engender a sense of floating in a manner that is somewhat unusual even for spacemusic.

Over seven tracks different types of drones and washes are used to keep the listener buoyed on a cosmic sea of sound. Lay back, close your eyes and let the experience begin with "The currents of space pt. 1" (the name perhaps suggesting that a follow-up track will appear on the next album?). Resonating drones form a backdrop of cold dark space as metallic washes, ethereal voices, and other synth effects gently whoosh past. Occasionally strange voice like snippets are heard, voices from the listeners own disoriented head or maybe a prelude to the squawky alien "voices" in the next track "When it came".

What works especially well on this album, to me at least, is the peculiar way that the sounds can have both a visceral and an abstract impact - it's easy to imagine floating through deep space with one's senses partly cocooned. Things change in the title track which manages to merge in a sense of melody with the flowing ambience before giving way to a drumming rhythm.

The Float Zone should appeal to most fans of spacemusic who aren't afraid to block out the rest of the world while they immerse themselves in an album. It deserves comparison to Steve Roach's The Magnificent Void, and in some respects the second disc of Michael Neil's Towards the Unknown Region (a classic spacemusic album in my opinion). Dino is to be commended in taking the floating/drifting genre to another, more literal, level. I recommend it without hesitation and can say that it's one of the best albums of it's kind to come out this year.