10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ambient Masterpiece, August 28, 2000
This review is from: Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Audio CD)
For anyone who associates DJs with corny dance remixes and dull club beats, DJ Spooky will blow that image away. "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", a collection of primarily ambient and textural works, is a dark and atmospheric work that shows Spooky's astounding ability of combining a variety of sources, from classical to electronic, and combining them into a smooth and beautiful whole. Anyone who is interested in the dark side of the ambient movement, especially fans of early Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, should get this album. There is a somewhat self-indulgent but still interesting essay also included in the liner notes. Though Spooky does proclaim himself a "music futurist," the tag line is surprisingly true. For anyone willing to slow down and listen, this album is an ambient classic.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the greater ambient pieces out there., November 18, 2001
The New York City illbient scene has definitely paved the way for more ill/ambient artists still to come. Many people say that the ill/ambient scene is dead (the artsy types out there enjoy pronouncing an artform dead on arrival, it may make them appear to be on top of things) - a passing fad, so to speak. (WE and Subdub are still releasing fresh vinyl albums/singles/tools off of Theagriculture, Liquid Sky, and Asphodel, for you who claim that they have vanished).
DJ Spooky claims that the world is a mix, which is definitely the philosophy's adage - in that the listening to music is more than passive, its active dissection into your self, any sound can indeed be you.
The year is 2001, and I can fervently claim that this (along with Viral Sonata)is one of best ill/ambient albums out there, in that Spooky has effectively merged the spatial, sparse sounds of ambient music with the driving beat of hip-hop and dancehall reggae/dub to make a new product, a.k.a illbient music. I say that ambient music is still fairly vibrant, in that DJs/noise-progenitors can site this album (as well as Necropolis, and various releases by other artists from Liquid Sky and Asphodel, TheAgriculture and Wordsound are also in the house) for a common and mutual reference point - much like how progressive rockers refer to Pink Floyd or how avid hip-hoppers refer to Grandmaster Flash or Grand Wizard Theodore.
As a DJ, I find this to be an excellent tool in that one can fragment (deconstruct) it into different parts and create a fresh, brand new product. Miller understood this concept (one in which many electronic Djs still refuse to understand) way before the illbient scene developed in the mid 90's. One only has to understand Miller's philosophy to feel his music (I must admit, his written essays are a bit hard to follow for the common man, one has to understand philosophical jargon to read it - he has a very... interesting vocabulary, lets say).
This album has a right to anyone's collection. I still listen to/deconstruct this five years after its release, and it can only be stale to those who aint ready. Like many forward-thinking artists, Miller's works will probably be re-discovered sometime in the future, and hopefully it will accepted along the lines of Iannis Xenakis, John Cage, Brian Eno, and perhaps even Akrikaa Bambaata and Kool Herc.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nocturnal, Cerebral, Hypnotic.......(5 Stars!!!), December 9, 2003
This review is from: Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Audio CD)
The term 'illbient' is a sound largely based around eclectic atmospheric ambient sounds steeped in 'Dub, Hip-Hop, Drum 'N' Bass with a mostly conceptual nature. So what should you expect???....think the occasionally dense moods & atmospherics of "Dj Krush", coupled with the Avant garde downtempo of "Aphex Twin's - Selected ambient works", with a large helping of the textured Sonics and genre fusion and melodic beats of "Dj Shadow"...yet managing to completely separate himself into something completely unique to him. Usually starting with a simple wall of ambient sound, to start proceedings, a Multitude of layered samples are gradually applied over the course of some of the sprawling 7 minute epics....(one track doesn't even introduce a actual beat until 3 minutes into the track). Its truly is a great album, of that there is no doubt, but with an overall sound that is predominately Cerebral, abstract, creative & yet largely reliant on mood, its certainly not a widely accessible album, but those entering into this with 'Their eyes wide open' will treasure a artist willing to sacrifice commercial appeal or creative exploration.
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