Customer Reviews

Encounter: A Journey in the Key of Space

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It took a long time for me to gain an appreciation for this album. On the surface, it doesn't seem like much, just a collection of electronic pieces centered around the UFO theme. But it is more than that. After many listenings, it comes across more as a philosophical exploration of the subject of Encounter, something much more difficult to understand, but something which has far-reaching implications for understanding man's place in the grand design.

The liner notes, which appear to be excerpts from a book on the subject of Encounter, written not by Stearns but by another man, speak of Encounter with the same philosophical perspective that is brought forth in the music. There is a sense of expectation and openness, awe, wonder, and even some dread in the amazing atmospheres Stearns crafts here. There is a lot of deep bass in this music, which will go unheard unless you have a good sub-woofer.

This is definitely a MUST HAVE work for anyone interested in electronic space music.

This CD sets the defenition for space music. This is somewhat of a concept album that consist of a spaceship landing and your journey to another world. One of Stearns' best

I have listened for 25 years to hundreds of ambient, new age, space music, classic electronic a la schulze, and this cd is very special. Stearns has made a tremendously deep work of art.

I have several of Stearn's CD's and love em' all!! Encounter evoke moods and feeling with each different piece from curiousity to anticipation, sweeping to awed reverance to finally end with lamentation and emptiness, almost giving the listening the feeling that they have "encountered" a new race of beings !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stearns' programatic opus, Encounter, takes you to the outer limits of ambient wonder. Very easy to listen to, yet not predictable like a lot of ambient artists. Lots of thick textures, but still very relaxing. 3 grey thumbs up!

If you're into space music this CD should be in your collection. I won't call it great but close enough. At my job I work at a computer and can listen to music while I work. That's where this sounds the best. My favorite is "Within". All the songs on here are a trip. I prefer to listen to homemade tapes at work as opposed to CD's. I have a tape with "Encounter" on one side and "Sea of Glass" by Giles Reaves on the other. They compliment each other well. This is space music with no frills so prepare to hear some far out sounding music. Actually, I think I should rate this CD 4 1/2.

Michael Stearns is the greatest new age musician there is! This album goes to show I am right. Very "spacey" and relaxing! Is perfect music for star gazing. This man has talent no one can match!

Ever gaze into the night sky for hours on end. If you want some music to accompany star gazing this is the perfect album. It is very relaxing like most of Michael Stearns' albums but it has some very dark and light twists to it.

No matter what others have said, I believe it is Michael Stearn's intent

for this album to be a musical portrait of a personal encounter with a UFO.

If you listen carefully and visualize yourself walking one night into a

lonely field or prairie, you sense the feeling of something large and

ominous stalking you from above. A sudden rise in temperature causes the

crickets to chirp faster until the heat stops them altogether. Eventually, you witness the heart-pounding landing of a craft from beyond. As the event unfolds, you are pulled like a magnet into its interior. You have just been abducted!

Later, you will be given a tour through space and a viewer inside the ship will show you the galaxies.

As you are returned to Earth, the craft lands in the ocean and goes down

below. During this time, the viewer shows you a history of our planet

and the devastating things we have been doing to it. When your journey

is done, you are returned safely to the shoreline where you watch one of

the luminous beings bidding you a farewell just outside the entrance of the craft as it hovers near the surface of the water.

The being slowly turns and enters the craft which then makes its spectacular and speedy disappearance into the night sky.

Will formal extraterrestrial contact in the form of the conventional alien (i.e. Gray) ever take place? Some ufologists and UFO buffs hope so, and whenever I put on this CD, as I hear it, the music is certainly evocative of this wish.

Michael Stearn's Encounter (1988) is, in my opinion, an essential supplement for anyone interested in the subject of the E.T. phenomenon (as I am). To record an album whose entire theme is that of the approach of the ESV (extraterrestrial space vehicle) - as Phil Thornton would also do with his Alien Encounter (1996) - is both an overdue accomplishment and a refreshing departure within the sub-genre of New Age space music. I only know of these two, and wish that there were more New Age albums out there devoted to this theme.

Encounter (10 tracks; 52:40), unlike Thornton's Alien Encounter, one may agree has a more earthbound feel to it, although it very much remains escapist, nevertheless. Whereas my mind is whisked away into outer space while listening to Thornton's CD, with Stearn's recording, venturing the cosmos isn't where I myself am taken, as we can clearly hear sound effects of what sounds like someone moving through some trees, as well as crickets chirping, and a craft descending, evoking the image in the listener of a terrestrially set alien visitation, as the seeming audible hiker strolls through a woodland. Imagine now a mysterious light up ahead in the clearing, where the occupants of a strange craft await seeking spiritual communion with the Earthling!

As the musician makes mention in his brief CD liner note, the theme of this album is that of Space. The beautiful cover painting of the sparkling-lit mothership hovering above a nocturnal lake is by Geoffrey Chandler. And in the cover insert to the CD there includes an excerpt taken from Terence McKenna's True Hallucinations.

I play this album repeatedly. As I hear it, it is highly evocative of what a numinous close encounter must feel like. I like listening to it when outside the stars are visible. The aurally cinematic Encounter is occasionally spooky, but more so one's fear of the unknown-visitation subsides as one learns to utterly embrace this mystical musical experience.