| Artist: Amongst Myselves Album: Fragments Released: November 2010 |   |
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After three CDs worth of impressionistic sonic vignettes, Amongst Myselves has realized Fragments (56'57"), an album which combines the sounds and forms from his earlier releases into a new and completely re-imagined dreamscape. Drawing from Still Life (2001), Sacred Black (2003) and Auburn Silhouette (2007) Steve Roberts fashions everything from the most minimal tone and field recording to guitar melodies, synth voices and deep drones from his three previous releases into a kind of Ambient re-mix album. These extractions are creatively edited then combined with other unrelated pre-existing elements and melded into original music. The results range from sustaining lines of sound and minimal electronic modulations to rich arrangements of considerable complexity. While proudly synthetic, Fragments (as all music by Amongst Myselves) offsets any hint of its machine origins with a consonant warmth corresponding with a more reflective human mood. Throughout it all beautiful environmental recordings rise and commingle with hymn-like harmonies. Fragments looks back and forward simultaneously. By collecting his earlier work into something new Roberts seems poised to embark on music projects that go beyond his past successes, and on to unexplored realms and deeper rewards.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 29 September 2010 | |
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