Ornament 'Bleu'    (Cyan Music CY-002) Ornament is a collaboration between artists Joe Creighton & Simon Polinski. Previous works of these artists include Creighton's "Holywell" and "Falling Again" & Polinski's Hesius Dome "The Age of Steam" released on Psy-Harmonics. Bleu is rich with glacial-drift chord changes and patient swells, leading the listener on a subtle journey with no determinate destination. The addition of Creighton's live acoustic bass is a nice touch. The only flaw, to my ear, is the over use of shakuhachi flute samples on two tracks. This sample, created by Akai in 1985, was overly used by many mid-1980's new age composers. Other than that annoying shakuhachi, this is a nicely crafted CD. Because of it's melodic structures and instrumentation, I think "Bleu" will appeal more to new age listeners than ambient affectionados. The collection is reminicent of mid-1980's releases on the German, Innovative Communications label, after Klaus Schulze sold the company to Rainer Bloss. The album begins with serene, warm electronics, then shifts into a series of richly melodic and varied sequential excursions at times renewed by a recurring musical motif that lifts the work as a whole to the higher conceptual level of electronic “music”. This is a CD of discreet beauty that gets better with each deeper listen. Review by Ben Kettlewell information: website: http://www.psy-harmonics.com.au/wipv3_6/page2/show.jsp?db=Entries&id=150653

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