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Erik Wøllo takes the future wherever he goes. Transporting us far and fast to a tomorrow that never got here, he gives us Different Spaces - his double CD set of high flying dreams. In a pageant of surpassing interest, Wøllo has realized 22 thoroughly imagined pieces across the two discs. Within this psychological recreation the listener will certainly become captivated by his beautiful vision. Different Spaces moves with determined speed, electrifying the space into which it is played. Rising to the astral layers we moonstruck wanderers may hear his melodic certainty. Sustaining electric guitar notes travel through shaping and shifting digital treatments, emerging as tones blurred smooth by worn circuits and warm transistors. Soft electronic percussion ticks eagerly beneath the deployment of plush synthesizer strings - in the endless variation of Wøllo's signature contemporary style. Further out, slowed down thought zones fascinate in swarms of glittering points and gradations of timbre - showing us that the most powerful works may be those sent to us in a whisper. With Different Spaces this extraordinary musician provides open, thoughtful, honest, wandering explorations of harmony, melody and rhythm - rendered in the sigh of metal strings and rising electro-choirs. As each track opens, breathes and develops, in the stirring rhapsody of notes, and pauses, sustaining tones, and slow snaking leads, clean, clear sounds resound into reverberant space. When subtly driven swells emerge, Wøllo plucks, holds, strums and loops his six strings in perfect placement around elegant synthetic touches, dabs and strokes. Then, just as easily, these emanations draw us down into dark ideas. Out there in the vacant future approaches the early light of the awakening dawn. Somewhere in this distance shines our tomorrow. Erik Wøllo takes his music to this place - to a world that knows better.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 29 June 2017 |
