When Eternity Touches Time By Jim Ottaway

When Eternity Touches Time

By

Jim Ottaway

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

Jim Ottaway’s stylish music has been in my life for some years now and many of his albums grace my hallowed musical database, now I can add another to my electronic playlist of choice it is entitled When Eternity Touches Time. This vibrant new offering has a whole new energy about its construction and I love it!

The power play of the opener is terrific and called Parallel Worlds and reminds me in style of AD music’s Ashok Prema (Electric Eyes of Man).

This exciting new offering contains variances of electronic genius and textured intelligence; an example for me would be the temperate offering of Second Sight, a piece that seems to hover with a sultry intent, and a backdrop that is literally holding back and building anticipation along the way.

There is something about this album that contains a real freshness of approach and a freedom of expression, the rhythmic tones of Clouds Hide The Sun is a perfect example of that statement, the keyboards and synths here are creative in mood building, and offer a lush layer of musical creativity.

After only listening to a quarter of this album I realised that I was probably listening to the best work yet from Ottaway, this is EM at its very best and tracks like Playing With Fire prove that point. The artists muse is in full creation mode here, with essences of some incredibly smooth synths and mixed with a crafted sequential progression.

Diamonds in the Rain is another fine mood filled opus that has a grand sense of the cinematic about its presentation; one could sense the Jean-Michel Jarre force within the weave of this beautiful song. This would make one very good single, the melody is deeply memorable, the tempo and construction doubly so and yes one of my personal favourites off the release.

At the half way marker we come across a tentative little number entitled No In-Between. A clever offering this and one placed in the perfect position on the album, it is as if we are crossing from one energy to another, a delicate and mysterious piece that seems to float around you in a whole new realm of ambience.

As we tip-toe into the latter half of the release we come across an almost angelic offering entitled Perpetual Epiphany. There was a wonderful resonance about this piece that I adored; the performance was bathed in a more mystical tone, rather than one of a mysterious nature; the synth and keyboard work here in this composition contains one of the finest examples of build and progression you will find in this genre.

The Skies the Limit is up next and this positive and vibrant offering is a truly exciting and powerful arrangement, one that I simply got utterly lost in whilst listening to Ottaway on his synths. This is classic EM and another superb offering that I was completely blown away with, and at times one that reminded of electronic musician Geigertek.

I regarded this next piece with total respect, the work here manifested by Ottaway was thoughtful and purposeful in its approach, and the synths used to create a wonderful sense of art on the composition Between Truth and Dreams were delectable. The tempo within this piece is utterly addictive and the little nuances contained within truly crafted.

Now for that moment when we walk hand in hand with the title track of the album, that blank canvas that is an opportunity to give us eager listeners an true overview of the entire concept, and of course called, When Eternity Touches Time. There is a wonderful pictorial lightness to this arrangement that I loved. I also sensed a well of emotion here that was so strong in the performance that it moved me to tears, what a title track indeed, a masterful opus of truth and love, a heart on the sleeve moment.

Our penultimate piece is entitled Isolated Realms, Ottaway picks up the pace here and raises the energy in another wonderfully rhythmic arrangement, this is one of those offerings that is hard to resist, and its percussive bass is a delectable and tantalizing offering, an almost funky at times.

So we are at that final dimensional rift, but before we cross over and back into our realm of reality, we have one more gift from the author of this fabulous new album, it is called Eternal Changelessness. Once more thanks to Ottaway’s stylish genius of performance I drifted away to this almost ethereal opus of brilliance, for me it was a wonderful 12 minutes plus of heaven.

When Eternity Touches Time by Jim Ottaway in my view, and I hope Jim doesn’t mind me saying this, is his best work so far, I am going to rave about this offering to everyone I can for a long while to come, it is packed with well written arranged and composed compositions, it weaves a narrative beautifully throughout the album, and even more so Jim Ottaway has in my view made the genre of electronic music vastly more accessible in 2020, thanks to the release of this amazing new collection of brilliant songs.