|
While The Spirits of Starlight (62'07") may be reaching for the celestial realm this music is truly about us, the Earthbound. On his fourth CD Hollan Holmes again provides the mind with an artificial environment then pushes us through that environment in wonderful ways. The first few of the nine tracks each move along like a precision timepiece. Evincing a liveliness and emotional drama we must admire Holmes' engaging sequencer fabrications, metrical patterns and pure structure. This language in which sonic objects move together in time communicates an interesting energy, one that is akin to neurons firing inside a thinking brain or the mechanical motions of the Cosmos. The further in we travel with The Spirits of Starlight the calmer and more cerebral the musical territory becomes. These slower spacier synthesizer pieces play with unforced tenderness and warmth - their stillness achieved from the music's electronic emotionality. Arising from the combined action of melodic contour, harmonic transition and shifts in dynamics these modulating musical shapes soon have our thoughts moving in ways they ordinarily do not. This music calls to the entire person, with the message from The Spirits of Starlight emanating from a region quite close to its source.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 14 August 2014 |
