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Calling forth yet another reality in need of testing Forrest Fang has realized The Oort Cloud Meditations (69'29"). Any compositional motion in this music comes, not from the notes on the staff, but by subtle shifts in timbre - leaving listeners to go everywhere the richness of sound may take them. Off on a wander charting our inner realm we encounter an incomparable sense of possibility. Seeking newness and otherness Fang's five meditative exercises in fragility will be found captivating and challenging in equal measure. With no specific or known point in the rhythm - like a continual and electric sensation - one must listen to each entire piece to realize that, even as they change the totality of these electronic arrangements are constant. With all the suggestions of scale removed we are lifted into free, infinite space. The atmosphere of expectancy enlarges, distending under pressure from within, then rests amidst ethereal resonances beneath a tenuous stability. The placid mood breathes and lightens, while the ringing and humming of Fang's coalescing drones interact with themselves. In this liminal aural realm the mind must give meaning to the music - making connections that cannot be traced in the lab. The Oort Cloud Meditations is a pure experience. Throughout the moody flow of flaring, fading textures and interplanetary ambiance, notes and tones progress in slow motion flight along quietly curving contours - such a subliminal, minimal response to the unknown wants of the cosmos.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 21 September 2023 |
