Spot-On: Shards Of Reason (album streams)

Shards Of Reason is an ambient, electronica project with nods to progressive rock and jazz. Proof that good music can be found anywhere these days. Even Birmingham.


Review By Brett Spaceman
Shards Of Reason is an ambient, electronica project with nods to progressive rock and jazz. Proof that good music can be found anywhere these days. Even Birmingham.

Good album title, this. Satellites is a reference to our moon and many other moons of the solar system besides. (See variously Titan, Europa, Io, etc.) Shards Of Reason take us orbit spotting then, on this their third record (I think) but first with a new line up. (Mainstay Phil Lawton is joined this time around by Beth Freeman.) But as well as the celestial name-checks, the objects, Satellites also references those peripheral subjects that perpetually circle our own lives.

The LP begins with ‘Luna’ which has a beat cycle a step away from Jungle. (If the drum and double bass genre didn’t already exist, Shards Of Reason just invented it.) The music overlaps an old, 1960’s, US, Space Race speech that I suspect was Kennedy. I’ve always had a thing for the ‘speech with music’ ensemble going back to the days of Ambrose Reynolds (of Pink Industry). Luna is also my wife’s nickname so I’m biased. (Sue me, I’m not worth a nickel anyway)

Shards Of Reason have presented us their own Lunar Suite with this album. Satellites could be a modern day successor to Holst. Fans of n5MD stalwarts SubtractiveLAD and Arc Lab will find much to interest them on this album, particularly on material such as ‘Early Morning Eruption…’ which shifts more toward Vangelis territory. ‘Phobos & Deimos’ are rendered more ghosts of mars, than moons in flickering, ephemeral glory. ‘Cryogenic Slumbers’ is another delight. Again it’s like a symphony – this time Górecki’s more hopeful alter-ego.

The more urgent, beat-laden pieces (such as ‘Final Descent To Triton’) nudge the record subtly toward Psychedelic Space rock. Not to the extent of an Ash Ra Tempel, but maybe something Robert Fripp might have conjured if Pro Tools had existed in the Seventies. I think these pieces would suit documentary or gaming. Then it’s back to gentle ambience. But Just when the album threatens to become innocuous (‘Ice Station Europa’) it re-rails with the beautiful piano refrain of ‘Io Fly-by’. Wowser! (Can I say that?) Traces of Erik Satie here. The jazz influences return and remain for album closer ‘Hydra’.

There’s a lot of junk orbiting our planet. Thankfully this album doesn’t add to that. After reams of weighty, provocative and too clever by half ambient offerings of late it’s nice to get back to something uncomplicated yet crafted. With a band name suggestive of fragmented sanity, don’t expect a jarring, wrong footing, cattle prod to the head, mindfuck of a listen. Satellites is unafraid to be relaxing and melodic in the way classic old-school, back in the days when it was called “new age”, ambient, was supposed to be. Escapist? Of course it is. The album offers any number of escapes. Ten tracks, ten outposts, and a whole universe utterly divorced from the humdrum of modern life.

I now plan to watch the end sequence of Solaris with the sound muted, and this playing instead. I offer no apology for this behaviour.
Review By Brett Spaceman http://www.sicmagazine.net

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On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy spoke before a joint session of the US congress and delivered the words "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

These words intertwine with a driving beat and double bass line on the opening track "Luna" to launch the listener on a journey, with each track setting a "musical picture" of various 'moons' within our known Solar System.

An unusual idea perhaps, in todays musical environment, but put aside any pre-conceptions of "concept album" and the listener is rewarded with an inspiring mix of ambience, jazz and drum 'n' bass, which will take him/her on a journey in the mind past our moon and out like a space probe into the depths of space .....

Anyone who may have come across the bands previous work ("Swept Away" and "Isolation" were previously available only as downloads from the bands own website) may be surprised at the difference in style and musical content , but "Satellites" marks, I believe, a positive step in the bands' evolution and screams out to be given a wider audience.

Considering this is a two-piece "project band" with composition, performance, recording and production all being carried out by the band members in (I believe) a "home studio" the results are amazingly professional and to be honest bloody amazing!

Personal stand out tracks include "Early Morning Eruption on Enceladus" with its koto-like melody; "New Moon Hidden in the Rings" with its lush synth/string pads and Rhodes piano melody and "Ice Station Europa" with its Tomita-influenced mood.

The final track "Hydra" is perhaps my faviourite though with random "pops & crackles" subsiding to reveal that string bass again, that sets the scene with a strong bass riff morphing into a wonderful driving piece of pure jazz-funk!

This will be on my mp3 player when I strap myself in on that inaugeral Virgin Galaxy Flight!
Review by miken http://www.amazon.co.uk

"Isolation" by Shards Of Reason

Those of us that have a basic knowledge of the history of rock music, probably those with a couple of decades under their belly - and probably with a belly - know how long it took for the raw rock sounds of the sixties to evolve into the by now legendary sound of classic albums like Dark Side of The Moon. The engineer of that album, went on to have his own career later on with the Alan Parsons Project. Studio and recording technology had evolved and caused a quantum leap in possibilities - and distractions some might add.

So how can it be that this twosome from Birmingham manage to create in their own home studio, with contemporary technology, an album that so strongly evokes those glory days of what became known as progressive rock? It comes rising like Aphrodite from the same ocean that brought us Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons Project, Roger Waters' later solo albums, heck even fellow Birminghamian Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra... and it is frightingly convincing! Phil Lawton (Keyboards, Basses, Guitars, Drum Programming, Synths) and Beth Freeman (Keyboards, Percussion programming, occasional vocals) created an album that is evocatively tempting the ghosts and ghouls of the psychedelia of the 70s.

Phil's voice is at times eerily similar to David Gilmour's. The music as such includes the soundscapes we're familiar with since Floyd, Tangerine Dream, but also early Genesis, Yes, Camel, Saga, even Barclay James Harvest, Marillion - hints of Mike Oldfield not to be overheard - ... the list is long. I have no idea why they insist on calling it ambient/electronica because "Isolation" is a rock album and a good one at that. Period. Standing out are the excellent vocal harmonies, the fretless bass at times and occasionally meandering guitar solos that almost make you forget punk ever happened.

The only negative to me as audiophile is that the final mixing and mastering could have been better and that would have improved the end result considerably. Nevertheless "Isolation" is a pretty impressive piece of home-work from this duo from Birmingham. (Also contributing on "Isolation" is Brian McCarthy)

And the follow up (see above), is even better, although that one is a whole different beast again, it can't even be compared anymore to "Isolation". The rock goes out the door and the Electronica / Nu-jazz really gets the better of them.
- Album Review by mephisto for totally fuzzy

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