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Like the visual designs of the northern lights, the album Aurora by Ian Boddy presents a range of dazzling effects; dancing sparks, swirling streamers, luminous atmospheres - cosmic energy transformed into an ever-evolving and fascinating display. Boddy's spiritual discipline along with his dedication to sound, reveals a deeply internal vision that may never be fully absorbed by the listener. He is one of Spacemusic's greatest practicing authorities and with every album and live performance, expands his reach. Boddy produces music of complex dimensions, his renderings living on through time in different ways - never to be appropriated by our "larger" world.
Aurora unfolds between states and levels, themes and moods, with the same beautiful mutability of the phenomenon from which the album takes its name. On the track Ecliptic, Boddy's artistic sense of melody and harmony blend with his sequencer craftsmanship as the piece shifts between harmonious chords and shades of intensity - the multi-layered synth patterns gradually rising and receding, adding and subtracting notes and layers of energy. The piece is active and lovely. Boddy also explores the darker corners of the genre on the tracks Gravity Well, Zero G and Vox Lumina. These pieces provide contrast to the brighter themes - Boddy producing the motifs in a mode beyond the limited range of well-ordered notes. The title track concludes the album. Characterized by choir-like synth pads progressing slowly across the heavenly plane, Aurora is a pastoral composition of deep sensitivity, offering consolation and solace.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 12 September 2002 |
