TRACKS

BISLAMA
OFFERING
SATARI
THEIDEA
SANGUINE MOON
BALI TWILIGHT (UNRELEASED LIVE IN STUDIO RECORDING)
SAMUI

Last week I received the two new titles listed above, presumably sent in the hope that I would play them on my radio show. I first put on "Bislama" by Alpha Wave Movement and Jim Cole and quickly concluded that this was an album i would probably like, especially as it is very much in keeping with they other excellent atmospheric music that Alpha Wave Movement has put out. Next into the CD player went "The Beginning" by Peter Busboom, and I immediately understood why it was getting high airplay on the New Age radio shows around the USA. "The Begining" starts off with a pretentious spoken voice telling us that "The more things change, the more they stay the same", which is then followed by an album full of well-engineered, thoughtfully arranged noodlings in a vaugley jazzy style with gentle drum'n'bass (ie: irregular) beats. Peter's music is a mix of synthesizers and electric guitars and sounds not unlike Enigma, but alas, Enigma as they might have been recorded on a day they were not particularly inspired.

So, back to "Bislama" it was, and on second listening I realised how great this understated little album is. Gregory Kyryluk (Alpha Wave Movement) plays most of the synths and Jim Cole provides wordless vocals and - on the last track - a haunting tamboura (not unlike a koto in sound). Jim's vocals are sure and steady and vary in style from piece to piece, blending in perfectly with the somewhat ominous synth tones. Much of the album is beautifully restrained and spacious with a sombre tone throughout. For comparison's sake, I'd say it sounds similar and every bit just as good as Michael Stearns' "Sacred Site" compliation, the two Suspended Memories (Steve Roach, et al) albums, or even side one of Brian Eno's "Apollo".

"Bislama" is the sort of album that really transports the listener to another place, such as - for instance - a mist-enshrouded cemetary. On the other hand "The Beginning" doesn't move me at all, having far too much emphasis on the music and not enough on the atmosphere it is meant to be reflecting. Compared to the thoughtful "Bislama", "The Beginning" is (despite it's thoughtful track titles) more about a sunny day spent zipping across rolling greens in a motorized golfcart.

The real test of great music is where it ends up in, say, fifteen years time. While Peter Busboom's output will most certainly outsell "Bislama" by quite a ratio, I fear that not many buyers will still be listening to it in the decades to come. On the otherhand, "Bislama" will definitely still be sitting in MY music collection next to other equally great albums of Michael Stearns and Brian Eno.

We have always enjoyed reviewing Gregory Kyryluk's magnificant project Alpha Wave Movement with releases such as The Edge of Infinity. His new release is a collaboration with Jim Cole and is nothing like he has done before. After listening to his various cds over the years we have come to appreciate the unique and special Amercian sound with influences of the European style. In specific Kyryluk has maintained a consistant link with the European sound combining elegant electronic textures and always with a harmonic movement with melodious sequences. All these elements are here in his new cd Bislama but he strikes a new sensuous elequence and his incursion of ethnic philosophy of music letss one hear a profound harmony on the new cd.Seven tracks of pure emotional pleasure.

Bislama is an amazing word with an amazing meaning. Bislama is one of the Micronesian languages from the archipelago that consists of many islands.
It is an amazing dialect which has been formed as a conglomerate of several local and European languages (mainly French), as European merchants frequently visited these islands in the 19th century. By combining two musical languages - the electronic ambience of Alpha Wave Movement and the overtone singing of Jim Cole, these musicians symbolically appointed this word to the style of their music. This excellent ethno-ambient album is filled with exotic sounds of gamelan, koto, Tibetan bowls, ethnic percussion, sounds of raindrops and faraway thunder...
The compositions Bislama,Offering,Satari,Theidea, and Samui send us to a world of green tropical remote islands, to the shores of blue lagoons as well as to the enigmatic outer space - mystical, purple splashes pulsing from the depths of otherworldly canyons - that is the magic of Alpha Wave Movement's music supported by the deep vibrating throat roaring and high pitched whirr of Jim Cole's overtone singing. Hypnotic and melodic, it's a very serious and valuable work - at moments similar to Propagation by Robert Rich.