Ysanne Spevack’s talents on the violin are of a singular nature in regards to the reimagining of the soundscape of the instrument, it tears, wails and sings outside the confines of its 16th century and ancient roots. Phillip Clemo is the multi-talent arranger, mixer, atmospheric landscaper of sound. There are a plethora of well noted musicians who form the band on this 1999 studio piece whose sonic tapestry is a well woven affair. It presents as a jam session but its disguise is thin and incapable of disguising the artifice of the mixing and production dedication of Clemo.
To a great degree it is a musician’s album, for there are few access point for popular appreciation here, and the sheer virtuosity displayed by the players here is something of a rare and somewhat hidden quality in general life. Soundzero at times displays all the sound stories populating its world at the time, ambient sensibility, world music vocal and instrument sensibility, classical rigor and discrete variation, jazz influenced free form construction especially amongst the percussion and drums. As a sound event it scales the heights of what a psychedelic ambient album amounted to in the time period of its original release, yet rarely did. It holds to none of the clichés of the genre and mixes instruments, phrasing, intonation, technique, and technology with a light deftness not displayed by the banner wielder.
Innerversitysound
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