Associated Artist:

CYSCAPE

"Slow moving ambient music that generates feelings of relaxation and intrigue with the added bonus of tension. I suppose these compositions are much more demanding than most others and they leave you feeling much more contented. The opening track The Master Plan is almost minimalist in comparison to the following title piece in which tribal beats add momentum to the well-crafted themes. It takes you on a journey where lyrics are banished and happy riffs are excluded in the pursuit of less tangible sounds that becomes totally involving. The track, Higher Senses, is very loud in comparison. Of particular interest is Reflection, where chorus style electronica is delicately fitted between the rolling effects. It is not a wall of sound, but rather a full production that makes it one of the best of a very good selection by Phil Riches. On your quest of musical exploration here is the perfect place to get your bearings."

Review from Modern Dance Magazine, Nov 2001

" While some know him as Phil Riches, lovers of spacy ambience will come to know him as Cyscape, the creator of softly droning otherworlds. Brimming with abstract soundvisions of a most celestial nature, Alignment is the latest offering from the UK's Farfield label. Dark beauty awaits in these eight mostly-beatless tracks. Soft drifting motions and faint rhythmics are detected in the amorphous ebb-and-flow of The Master Plan. The blips, buzzes and sweeps of smooth-sailing Alignment are beaten upon by tribalized drumsounds in the middle third of the track. Seemingly nearer and more active, nebulous Higher Senses (5:00) drones energetically, laced with bleeping accents and wafting ghoststrings, before slurring into quieter zones of reverberous remembrance. A dense mix of rising/falling shimmers and hypnotically rippling adornments, Reflections (10:04) swelters in cyclic movements, picking up a bassier pulse and bird-like chitters as it evolves before returning to its original state. Deepspace drones and higher sheens serpentine through Depth of Vision; lightly pattering beats pockmark the writhing layers in a relaxed tempo. Ephemerally thrumming energies swell from View, the nearly-10-minute closing track; wispy chimes pulsate through an electron fog. Seekers of new interstellar soundspaces will float effortlessly into these lovely dark regions as rendered by Cyscape... Alignment shimmers with gaseous sonics, gleaming-though-diffused synthstreams and a few instances of e-perucssion. An 8.6-rated personal floatation area."