Customer Reviews

Periphery

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

 

 

I have listened to this album constantly since it arrived. I would label it "analogue ambinet" music, but it has a tunefulness and handmade quality that sets it apart from Eno, Harold Budd and other pioneers of that genre. Purchasing the download is fine, but buy the CD if you can find one. It comes with 14 beautiful multiple exposure photographs made by the artist. This package is well worth the investment and highly recommended.

Soaring, introspective, uplifting, meditative are some of the things that come to mind after listening to this work a few times. I hope there is more from this artist in the future.

"Seven Fields of Aphelion" is the solo name that Maux Boyle of the Pittsburgh band Black Moth Super Rainbow is using, and "Periphery" is her first album. This is old-school-style ambient, in a good way. The quieter passages on synthesizer and piano are reminiscent of Brian Eno's work on albums like "Music for Airports" and "Discreet Music." The drones, chimes, and other subtle sounds Boyle uses are rather like parts of Stars of the Lid's work.

But in comparing her work to these others, I'm not saying that it's derivative in a negative sense. At its best, this music has a tonality that's different from any other ambient I've heard -- spacious and somehow warm, despite its sparseness. This is an album made to be listened to as one continuous work, and the mood doesn't change greatly over the course of it. If you enjoy quieter, vintage-feeling ambient music, you should like this.