Laraaji:
Essence/Universe:
All Saints/Warp:
Out Now
★★★★
Born Edward Larry Gordon and mystically re-monikered to Laraaji Nadabrahmananda in the late '70s, his shorter nom-de-plume has created and issued many landmark ambient and new-age recordings for the best part of three decades. Most of his work appeared on his own Laraaji label or on Editions EG, Celestial Vibrations and All Saints, whose repertoire is currently being polished up by Warp.
Perhaps Laraaji's key-work could be cited as 'Ambient 3: Day Of Radiance' and latter triumphs such as 'Flow Goes The Universe' and it's the midway point between the two that 'Essence/Universe' originates and compares to. Rather more 'celestial' than the former and less 'spiritual' than the latter, this under-stated two-tracker offers little in the way of memorable snippets and rather more in the way of straight new-age. Both thirty minute pieces ebb and flow in much the same way as you'd expect a piece for chimes and zithers would do, with little variation other than the subtle idiosyncrasies of the instruments involved.
Hypnotically similar to Harold Budd's 'Abandoned Cities' and Brian Eno's 'Thursday Afternoon', Laraaji's tempered approach to music-making is never more than laid-back and never less than absorbing. Crystalline dream-like music at odds with the world - I'll have some of that.
Essence/Universe:
All Saints/Warp:
Out Now
★★★★
Perhaps Laraaji's key-work could be cited as 'Ambient 3: Day Of Radiance' and latter triumphs such as 'Flow Goes The Universe' and it's the midway point between the two that 'Essence/Universe' originates and compares to. Rather more 'celestial' than the former and less 'spiritual' than the latter, this under-stated two-tracker offers little in the way of memorable snippets and rather more in the way of straight new-age. Both thirty minute pieces ebb and flow in much the same way as you'd expect a piece for chimes and zithers would do, with little variation other than the subtle idiosyncrasies of the instruments involved.
Hypnotically similar to Harold Budd's 'Abandoned Cities' and Brian Eno's 'Thursday Afternoon', Laraaji's tempered approach to music-making is never more than laid-back and never less than absorbing. Crystalline dream-like music at odds with the world - I'll have some of that.
