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Simon Lomax composes beautiful music that when aired, if it does its job correctly, almost no one will ever hear. His Ambient album A Glimmer of Memory (52'53") possesses an austere and despondent beauty. Making sustained internal focus seem natural A Glimmer of Memory has all the weight of a daydream. But the more time we spend with this work the more its sophistication dominates. Equal parts elegy and observation the six tracks deal with the singular condition of the individual. Isolation and self-seeking are prominent themes as Lomax composes open and spacious pieces filled with reverberant piano, synth-strings, tremulous tones and organ breathing chorus. One track offers a steady tapping in the way of a discernable rhythm, above which venting sounds hiss and blow an odd atmosphere into the listening space. Strange slow harmonies touch and contrast against one another with hollow electronic voices offering calm unity - noticed only between the cloudy production of chords. Elsewhere we notice the dreamy motion of recurring sound amidst a vague sense of building forms; each realization conjuring its own wondrous and unique realm. Everything on A Glimmer of Memory seems well- crafted and thought out, even though it plays through as aimless and direction-less as idyll thought. This is intelligent chill music for the person receding into oblivion.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 31 July 2014 |
