 |
|
|
Roy Nash |
|
|
|
|
|
You know one of them feelings when you get the butterflies in your stomach and you go a little light headed??....well that's the feeling I had upon putting this CD into my player and pressing play, it just simply blew me away.
The opening track is a very relaxing track, with long string chords and light drones that eases you into the album making you feel at home and getting you comfortable for the journey...I suppose its like somebody giving you a key to some beautiful hidden land, and you open the door and just stare at the horizon in amazement, that is what this track is, its the horizon you are looking at through the door giving you a taster of what to expect in the land below.
"Schaduwrijk" opens with slightly sinister sounding strings that gave me the impression of some netherworld orchestra warming up before a big performance. By halfway the track takes a slightly quieter direction and becomes very subtle, forcing the listener to actually listen, this is one of the things I like about Matthews music is that it makes you, the listener, pay attention to the music because if you don't you'll be denied the very discrete sounds bubbling below the surface. At the five minute mark the track decides to let its beauty bloom, and you are hit with a very moving string chord progression which pulls you deeper into the magical world of GrijsGebied and by this time your totally enchanted.
Flowing nicely into the third track which is titled "Genezijde" you are again greeted by a lovely opening synth which very much reminds me so of a Mindspawn track "Sepulcher Of The Witch" which is fitting really as Gene Williams (Mindspawn) is the collaborator with Matthew on this track and his presence is instantly heard as this is by far the more dark ambient of all the tracks. In typical Mindspawn fashion, gorgeous textures overlap each other creating some pretty jaw dropping soundscapes in which to totally immerse yourself into, and listening as each sound fades out so smoothly you don't even notice it vanish. Matthew and Gene compliment each other extremely well.
"Dageraad" gave me the feeling of wandering around a very large spacious area with no worries or pressures, it seemed to enhance my relaxed feeling. The track is built around a faultless low droner that seriously enhances your calm. Accompanying the coma causing droner are some beautiful little touches which brings the track to life, like the extremely subtle wind sound that travels round the sound field which, like I said earlier, gives the track a spacious feeling. Matthew uses his trademark strings to drive this track on and ends it with some quite lovely piano keys. This is most certainly my choice of track to listen to before bed, it will most certainly cure your insomnia.
Now halfway through the album, and we are joined by some slightly more higher frequency synth fx. slightly harsher than the rest of the CD and again quite sinister too. Just the fx alone wouldn't be out of place in a score for a chiller film, which is then made more chilling when the drone comes in and reverberates around the place. As "Glaswind" nears its conclusion it takes a total metamorphosis and you hear the luscious pads moving in over the drone of before and the chord progression gave me a real sense of reminiscence.
"Maalstroom" opens again with that faultless droner that is so relaxing...I mean its truly testament to his ability as each droner never sounds the same. This is the more dramatic of the tracks on the album and is guided by a beautiful synth pad, not unlike choir ahhhs but filtered far more and it moved me quite deeply, I still get goosebumps when this later part of the track comes in. The feeling coming from the track gave me a real sense of warmth and love and I swear during this track id fall in love with any girl that crossed my path, that is how powerful a feeling this track spreads.
In my opinion, this is the crowning glory of the album. "Nakalm" opens with such a beautifully reverberated guitar sequence that every time I hear it I feel like crying, its an opening to make love too, the awesome ghost like vocal that shimmers over is very overwhelming and if you didn't fill up at the start you will now. The whole feeling I get from the track is one of sadness....its like on your amazing journey of GrijsGebied you've come across the most beautiful monument you've ever set eyes on, yet you wallow in sadness as you see that it has been defaced by long ago residents and you just cant seem to contemplate why people would do such a thing to something so beautiful. Its in this second half of the track that the feeling of sadness starts to be overshadowed by a feeling of contempt, contempt for the people that harmed the wonderful thing that is standing before you and then on to pity, as you pity them for feeling the need to vent their insecurities on something that somebody has spent many years mastering. Now I know you read that and have thought "where the hell did that come from" but that's the chord this track strikes in my head, and for it to give me such a vivid feeling/image it sits proud as best track on the CD.
"Tussentijd" fades straight in from the last track and opens with a low dark sound that sounds like some subterranean beast breathing just below. Again Matthew uses those strings so wonderfully to totally change the mood of the track, a mood which has changed from the feeling of sadness of the last one to the feeling of like hope for this one, like I have regained some new found urgency in my journey and I am looking forward to what lies ahead. Also in true Matthew style the track concludes with a short, heartfelt string piece that is over as quickly as it started making you think "did I really hear that?"
More collaborative goings on in this track as Erik T' Sas and Stan Linders join sides with Matthew Florianz to create a track of epic proportions. The curtain rises to what sounds like a tribal horn going off in the distance, which gets closer, as if I'm travelling towards it, until it engulfs me, taking me by the hand and drowning me in this sea of sound. The track progresses beautifully, using delightful pad swells and long ethereal string chords which again all rides on the crest of a droning wave, until the last remaining minute where the drone fades out and leaves just the remaining chord progressions again creating a feeling of awe.
Which now brings me too the second best track on the CD. "Dwaallicht" is an example of beauty in simplicity. You wont find dramatic string chords or layers of orchestral textures, what you get is a trademark Matthew Florianz drone, pulsing and swelling along which is complimented by the fantastic shimmering synth that just stays in earshot and pans ever so slightly across the stereo-field. But the highlight of the track, is the angelic voice of Tatiana Brainerd that produces such a sense of floating I had to look down to make sure I wasn't actually coming off the ground. Her voice conjures up images of the beautiful site of the sun setting in the distance while the darkness shrouds the land in which I'm traversing in. A true light in the darkness, and I hope she becomes part of many more of Matthew projects.
As you can see I tried to summarise each track on the album to how I perceive them, and I understand that it wont be the same for everyone, but this is in my opinion the benchmark ambient album out now. GrijsGebied blows everything else out of the water and at the moment I think nothing will touch it for quite a while yet. I don't think I have ever heard an album with so much feeling in before and can produce so many vivid images into this listeners head, its the only album I currently own that brings goosebumps with every track and an album I can never see me getting bored of listening too as it caters for every mood.
I can't stress enough how much you must buy this album, and at the time of writing this review there are a few Boxsets available to purchase which you must buy as you receive 2 extra CDs, one with all the tracks they couldn't fit onto the final cut of GrijsGebied and a data CD-ROM that gives you information of every person involved in this awesome project and also another huge selection of back catalogue tracks and unreleased tracks giving you a total of 3 hours of music, so if possible try to get hold of a boxset..but if not the "GrijsGebied" CD on its own is a most amazing purchase which any lover of ambient will lap up and in my opinion the album of the year, hey maybe even decade, so far.
|
|
|
|
|
|
