A collaboration between veteran Donato Dozzy and newcomer Neel, said to be inspired by the mountains of Japan and dedicated to a lake somewhere in Italy. It opens with a recording of a burbling brook feeding the eponymous lake, one assumes, sweetly sliding over pebbly beats with a warm bass undercurrent and an irregular, rich two-note organ tone flashing like a big marble trout.
As is ambient techno´s wont, it builds in waves in which the beat predominates, and fortunately the duo are clever enough to both let their rhythms and acoustics evolve with patience and imagination and insert attractive and colourful sounds in between them. Pleasant and cliche-free, Voices from the Lake glory in creating their own virtual aquatic sound library, from the tinkling of drops shaken off the wings of a dragonfly to bubbles floating up from deep down.
Somewhat divorced from reality inasmuch as the propulsive nature of the music, whose eleven tracks flow ever so smoothly one into the other, rouses association to a rushing river more than placid lake, by the fifth track, however, mysterious voices do seem to be rising from beneath the surface, hinting of legend and saga, an Italo Calvino folktale, gentlefolk wrapped in seaweed. So perhaps â€lake†is right; perhaps one should pay more attention to the depth, rather than the lineal direction of the album.
Warm, fresh and clear blue skied.
Stephen Fruitman
