Sphere

Landing | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 7, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: K. Records
• ASIN: B0002QO34Q
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #300,554 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Never Hurts To Come Full Circle Once In Awhile, June 15, 2011

By 

kabalabonga - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sphere (Audio CD)

Sounding once again if they were beaming frequencies across the universe and hoping to hit each relay along the way through the infinite echoing of guitar and keyboard, Landing opens "Sphere" with "Fluency of Colors" , a track that brings to mind the elasticity of a their first CD (still unreleased by Amazon)"Centrefuge", which is also referenced during the "Gravitational" sequence on tracks 2 and 4. "Into Silence", with delayed guitars in the forefront echoing out a chiming, nearly levitational scale and those in the background mixed toward a heavier texture, keeping this track anchored to a loping rhythm that wouldn't have been out of place on "Circuit". The conventional arrangement of "Where The Leaves" (including clearly articulated vocals by Aaron Snow)wears the influence of "Seasons" well. "Filament" with gorgeous, breathy vocals from Adrienne Snow, a heavily resonant bassline, and an insistent beat drawn out from the use of roto-toms, also revisits "Seasons", but with more ambience . "Solstice" and "Sphere", immediately following it, hearkens back to "Fade In Fade Out"'s tonally expansive, heavily chiming, elongated drones, while "Gravitational 3" is a spiritual descendant of some of the longer tracks on "Oceanless", with the interplay of a heavy, oscillating drone driven by guitar and keyboard drenched with reverb and delay. "Feel, And The Seas Fill" takes the listener back to the mixture of acoustic shimmer and heavy drone it would partially pursue on "Passages Through", especially w/r/t/ that release's lengthiest track, "Close Your Eyes Slowly ". I personally found each track to have sense of depth to measure up to the material that provided its point of origin, and from which the variations on these themes are derived.

And if you hadn't noticed by the tone of this review already, I have no problem whatsoever with Landing repeating themselves. One of the preceding reviewers is obviously disappointed because "Sphere" sounds like an amalgamation of each of Landing's previous releases, and also seems disappointed that Landing's recordings don't appear to display any kind of fluid progression. Having listened to them since the release of "Oceanless" in 2001 and having ordered "Circuit" shortly thereafter, I can tell you with confidence that each subsequent release showed advancement in some facet of their overall sound. Perhaps "Sphere" was released as a summation of this fact; the very word describes something circular in nature, and Landing makes a positive effort to revisit the elements they refined along the way during the evolution of their sound. If you're just starting out with Landing grab a copy of 'Circuit", but "Sphere" is definitely worth picking up, whether you're a neophyte listener or a completist.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Landing finally achieve a perfect balance, September 24, 2004

By 

Scott Richardson (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sphere (Audio CD)

Sphere is, undoubtedly, Landing's finest achievement to date. While earlier releases had steered in one direction or another, this album realizes a perfect mix of psychedelic-tinged pop and lush ambient soundscapes, mixing guitars, vocals, and electronics into a gorgeous palate of sounds. A truly remarkable achievement, you really need this album.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sphere, January 13, 2005

By 

Mike Newmark (Tarzana, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sphere (Audio CD)

For those who know or care, Landing is widely perceived as the lighter side of Windy & Carl, the day to their night, the land to their murky waters, and whatever other analogies are necessary to pigeonhole them as purveyors of bright, shimmering psych-haze. And, like Windy & Carl, you pretty much know what you're getting when you buy a Landing album: gently plucked guitar over a light drone, sublime electronic touches, vocals and drums buried heavily in the mixture. Over their 6-year career Landing have only minimally deviated from their original platform, experimenting with organized song structure and loose, reverb-y ambience in equal measure but never veering radically toward either of them. So, in the course of three full-lengths and even more EPs, Landing have established their sound to the fullest extent, culminating in Passages Through--their third LP and the clearest expression of their methods as of yet.

Faced with this situation, Landing needed to know precisely where they were going and how they would plan to progress on subsequent efforts, and it seems they haven't yet begun to answer this question. Sphere is, essentially, another Landing album, utilizing the same elements to a wispy, sleepy, harmless effect. The band once again toes the line between song and texture, and as an entire work it's practically indistinguishable from Circuit, Seasons, and especially Passages Through. Admittedly, Landing are more about consistent beauty than pushing envelopes, but what to do when every dreamy soundscape, every plucked guitar string, every breathy vocal by either Aaron Snow or his wife Adrienne, is in its proper place, cycled and recycled into anonymity? The stasis between albums provokes the question of "why?" enough times to take some pleasure out of listening to this one.

All of which isn't to say that the music on Sphere isn't pretty--it is--but only Landing neophytes will find it worthwhile. "Fluency of Colors" is a gently driving track reminiscent of dreamy post-rockers like Tristeza, but the concoction isn't vibrant enough to make a statement in a liberal six minutes. Beginning here, and ending with the similarly bland "Feel, and the Seas Fill," the listener will find typical Landing, if a bit more uninspired than on previous efforts. All three "Gravitationals" hark back to the effect-heavy ambience of Oceanless and Fade In/Fade Out, but they lack the emotional depth present in spades on both of those EPs. One exception is "Filament," appearing too late on the disc, which is easily one of Landing's most gorgeous songs they have ever recorded: warm, liquidy guitar repeats an affectionate hook over airy violins and Adrienne's vocal echoes. Such a song reminds those who have stuck with the band why they listened in the first place: Landing's warm-colored, autumnal dreaminess is frankly unmatched by anyone within the slowcore genre--a shining, celestial counterpart to Windy & Carl's darker side of the same coin.

And they still are, to be sure, but even as Windy & Carl's musical palette didn't really change, their songs still sounded oddly varied from each other, and each album offered its own distinct rewards. Landing, on the other hand, continue to serve up the same drone-rock they did four albums ago, and their music is less captivating and more soporific than it sounded at the turn of the century; the aural equivalent of chloroform. Consistency used to be Landing's selling point, but it's now becoming their Achilles heel, and Landing listeners would not really be hurt for passing up Sphere, especially if they already have Circuit and Seasons on heavy rotation.