[REVIEW] Ambient Chamber Music

 

 

CHRISTIAN WITTMAN – Ambient Chamber Music

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-chamber-music

"Not only a perfect title but a set of tracks, from just over 5 to nearly 12 minutes in length, that perfect encapsulate what the musician is wanting to create and that is cosmic electronic music in an almost Classical setting without actually sounding Classical or Orchestral. From the opening 10 minutes of “Hybrid Dreamscape” onwards, this is synths and electronic music that is at the hinterland between space and strings, with a feel, flow and form that is utterly engaging, and continues in this vein right to the end, but in the process, explores some magnificent and magical soundscapes, along the way. 

 In many ways and many areas along the journey, the sound is similar to what you hear on the first and last tracks on Tangerine Dream's epic “Zeit” album, with that heady mix of synths and strings, exploring a darkness that is completely outer space, yet retaining a light to which you are inexorably drawn. In fact, there are times where you are most certainly hurled back into the early seventies adventures of the drummer-less Tangerine Dream, as the music moves through time and space with a cosmic purpose on a seemingly unending journey that you have to take. 

It's not all cosmic icing though, in fact very little of this is what the American synth fraternity would describe as “blissful”, and a lot of it is quite dark while not being dense, unafraid at times to voyage into more avant-garde realms, but then quickly emerging to trace a whole new path through the cosmos. Easily one of his best albums for a while, this transfixes and maintains its quality throughout, always moving, sometimes subtly, and always taking you along for the ride."

Andy Garibaldi, review published in Audion #79,  p. 40.