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The world is much smaller now in 2010 than when David Parsons first began playing Spacemusic. When his classic cassettes Tibetan Plateau (1982) and Sounds of the Mothership (1980) were released the idea of combining sounds and ideas from non-western cultures with synthesizers and electronics was just dawning and hitherto unknown. Thirty years and twenty or so albums of cross-cultural compositions later Parsons has idled the sounds but kept the concepts of world music in his release Akash (61'32"). Proudly photographed for the CD liner notes in front of a bank of Novation synthesizers, the listener gets the message that Akash is a work of synthetic origin. While this music is realized totally through electronic instruments, and the tracks play among the stars, Parsons' compositional aesthetic retains its eastern influences and human touch. Still about cycles and atmosphere the music possesses weight in spite of tenure in zero-g. As one track runs its sequencers full-tilt skyward, others drift calmly through space. A slowly sweeping resonance rises and falls at a breath's pace as synthesizer bleeps plop, skip and pop along an echoing stream of sound. Buzzing drones writhe beneath random muted chimes with strange modulations moving us even further out into the cosmos. Although on Akash Parsons does not use any of the unique acoustic instruments he has come to know in his world travels, the music continues to possess the integrity of even his most traditional influenced albums. Certainly this release from David Parsons is meant to turn our minds spaceward, yet it manages to remind us of a more naive age, when most of our planet - as the heavens today - was still strange and unexplored.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 21 October 2010 |
