| Artist: Hollan Holmes Album: Phase Shift Released: 22 March 2013 |   |
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Phase Shift (64'20"), the third album by Hollan Holmes, more than lives up to the burden of high expectations. A spiritual sequel to his CDs A Distant Light (2011) and Farthest Fringes (2011), Phase Shift journeys along the strange, twisting paths of a spacey and intensely ambiguous digital landscape. Utilizing great dynamic range variations, crescendos and diminuendos, as tools to create a deeper spatial dimension and psychological impact, Holmes makes music that seems to hang and yet resolve all at the same time. Phase Shift travels from the rhythmically interlocked intensity in the first two tracks, to the slow moving and harmonically complex remaining three movements with some ease. The opening two sequencer pieces risk overload. Brief works of cycling electronic patterns grow in an uncommon hushed intensity. Drifting through the echoing pulsation is a soft reed-like melody. Synthesized to counter the machine precision of the sequencer the wandering lead line rises and softens the minimalistic logic of these pieces. From motion filled music Holmes moves to works with a slowly building sonic range - upon which to rest our thoughts. The remaining three realizations are seemingly tranquil, somnolent ambient meditations. From dreamlike stillness, to fierce brilliance, to pure seduction, Holmes locates new paths and branches of sonic exploration. His music acknowledges the physical power of sound without forgoing the chance to stimulate intellectual responses.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 28 March 2013 | |
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