Sound Polarities By Tsode

 

Sound Polarities

By

Tsode

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

It must be my lucky day today, the music is flowing fast and free and the beauty of it all is marvellous, this is the second album to review this sunny day in December, and it is a task willingly taken. The musical journey is a release called Sound Polarities and created and composed by Tsode.

The artist has been on my musical radar now for some 8 years or so, but here on Sound Polarities this is truly superior work that is something to be totally proud of, the initial start so much reminds me of early Eno, its gentle reflective sun kissed tones are a fine place to begin and entitled Sound Polarities I.

The more electronic energies are touched within this next offering that also remind me of my old friend Ramsey Gee who used to produce a style of ethnic electronic music for AD records, here on Funny Business Tsode manufactures something similar and fun.

An interesting title is up next and called Kismet, a word describing fate, destiny, by some essence of chance, regardless Tsode has produced something powerful and driving within this composition that reminded me of Robert Miles and his 1998 hit Children, with a slight hint of Jean Michel Jarre into the mix.

We now move to the fluent vocals that can be found on the track entitled A Brighter Love. One must congratulate the artist on this piece, this is a composition that could easily make the Euro song contest, but in all honesty probably is far too good, and one has to also say, this was incredibly well sung as well.

Memories of Ascension Paths started with a soft synth passage and morphed with a slight percussive element into a piece that would have graced any 1990’s Buddha bar or chillout lounge; the floating and easy on the mind vibrations here for me manifest a sublime piece of musical structure that truly needs to be respected.

We move ever onwards towards a piece called The Silk Movement, a leading piano narrative lights our way, whilst a soft pastiche of strings adds texture to the proceedings, it has to be said that this is an extremely artistic creation, I remember Kitaro’s Silk Road, but the tempo here is more thoughtful and most certainly amazingly reflective too.

The intermediate composition is our way finder on the album and of course is Sound Polarities II, but this time the grounding is given to us ever eager listeners with a trance like percussive beat, one that leads us cleverly into the following narrative of Melodies of a Night's Dream feat. Moises Daniel, on a piece that has a sensitive almost lullaby mood to its arrangement.

Venus is our next location, and a vast voyage of musical joy can be found here on this crafted synth based opus, we have a syncopated percussion, a perfect example of electro pop, one that leads the listener on a constant onward motion, perhaps past Venus and into the very space time continuum itself. Where we may find the piano lead track coming next called Sakura, another dance based opus that takes us back to the 90’s.

On the piece Improvisations of Soul there is a tender motif, an almost angelic arrangement that is pristine in nature and texture, whilst on the following musical narrative Time to Run the pace picks up, the energy increases to bring us a piece that had that Jarre feel to it, with even more progressive structures.

One of my favourite subjects to create music about, are the monolithic structures we call mountains, here the artist manifests something quite moving and emotive and entitled The Mountains. We live on a small island that has three main ranges to enjoy, the vastness of the composition relays that epic vista to me with ease.

Interestingly enough the longest offering from the album is called Life and at some 16 minutes plus in duration is one of the longest composition we have ever had from the artist. This for me is a suite of several parts, all of which are utterly sublime and creating an artistic and fascinating musical voyage, with moments of sparkling keyboard and electronic magic, Tsode brings us an epic journey of Life like never before, and has us all held in the palm of his hands whilst doing so. The concluding piece is a remix of track 3 entitled Kismet (EvilSound Remix), which brings our journey to a climax with a stunningly fluent electro pop finish.

Sound Polarities by Tsode is a truly epic release; some 15 tracks can be found within the realms of this new album, and in some ways the release and its contents manage to cater for most listeners musical preferences along the way. Here is an anthology of smart and gifted arrangements from one of the finest electronic musicians of his day, and an album of infectious energy, one that should be supported by all and called, Sound Polarities by Tsode.

A Journey Of Dreams By Paul Adams & Elizabeth Geyer

 

A Journey Of Dreams

By

Paul Adams & Elizabeth Geyer

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

For me this winter has been illuminated and literally lit up, by one of the most beautiful new albums of 2024 called A Journey Of Dreams, and its creators Paul Adams & Elizabeth Geyer deserve a huge amount of respect for bringing to our musical table one of the most ambient, meditative, and blissful albums of the year thus far, and boy, just when we all truly needed it.

This is a 10 track release that proudly starts with the title track and therefore of course called A Journey of Dreams; soft synths lead our way, with gentle vocalisations, one that leads us carefully towards a dreaming flute, our panacea on this musical journey.

This release is heavenly and is a collection of creations that inspire calm, tranquillity and serenity, pieces like the, The Arrival contain a plenitude of instrumentation including Ethnic Flutes, Chinese Hulusi, Sitar, Piano, and Harmonica.

Each and every composition is curated with such a tender attention to detail, and one of my favourite offerings called The Lightness brought a sense of originality like never before, when on 9 seconds in a small bird flew in from through the window of the artist’s studio, and added its contribution to the piece with a chirp.

Another meditative and soothing gift I must highlight is called Drifting; the layered and textured beauty of this piece mesmerized me completely, we now add the instrumentation of the Oud and Dobro, whilst the piano continues to lay level upon level of bliss, in the same was as David Naegele did back in 1982 with Temple in the Forest.

I cannot praise this album enough, this whole project literally took me back to the golden age of new age music with its multi-faceted perfection and musical exploration, the penultimate offering helped that aforementioned statement further and called Somewhere There Is Hope, an old age new age track that will be held in future decades as a timeless reverie of peace, adding the Sitar to the composition Adams and Geyer create just that.

The journey is concluded with one of the most breath taking compositions that you are likely to hear in this genre and called The Reward. The softness of this specific arrangement manifests an almost ethereal energy; Adam’s flute seems to cry across the ageless dimensions of time and tide, and thus give to its listeners a piece that is truly reflective, heart felt and emotionally touching, all of this can be felt within this concluding creation.

A Journey Of Dreams by Paul Adams & Elizabeth Geyer has to be one of my personal favourite albums of 2024, and as we draw the closure of this year, we can honestly look back and say that this has to be the best work of the musical duo with ease, and with my heart on my musical sleeve, my personal favourite album of that time too. Albums of this grace and beauty do not come around that often, so I urge you to embrace A Journey Of Dreams by Paul Adams & Elizabeth Geyer, it is without doubt one of the finest examples of multi-instrumental new age music ever.

When The Sun Has Legs By Chrissie and Steve Sheppard

 

When The Sun Has Legs

By

Chrissie and Steve Sheppard

Written by

Andy Rogers

 

Chrissie and Steve Sheppard are of course well known as the owners of One World Music Radio and as show presenters. Steve is also famous for his expertly crafted music reviews, while Chrissie is an expert in holistic therapies. For the last few years they have also been recording and releasing their own brand of music. Steve has long been a fan of “New Age” music and Chrissie loves flute based music, so it was inevitable that their music follows that course, albeit with their own unique stylings.

The new album from Steve and Chrissie is called When The Sun Has Legs, a phrase popular on Cyprus (where they live), that refers to when the sun shines from behind clouds and causes shafts of sunlight to fall from sky to ground in an almost biblical way. Apparently Steve and Chrissie had been out for the day, making their way home during a storm that suddenly cleared with the appearance of sunshine behind the clouds. Suitably inspired, once home they went immediately into the studio and this entire album was completed in one day.

The six tracks on the album take us through a day which starts out sunny and calm, descends into a fierce and wild storm then clears to leave us once again in sunshine by a calm sea. The first track Peaceful Harbour is a quiet morning as we hear the sounds of harbour life around us, gentle sea and seagulls with distant church bells. The music reflects this with an almost ambient feel: held notes with a lead instrument that sounds almost like a harp – very evocative and calming.

We find the title track up now, When The Sun Has Legs, here you can feel the day changing. The sun has gone behind the clouds. Rain is starting to fall as the music becomes darker and more intense. The volume of the music increases as the track ends with rippling piano leading us into track 3 Before the storm here Chrissie’s flute is very much to the fore, hovering over Steve’s ambient keyboards and increasingly menacing rain and thunder.

By track 4 Storm Front we are well and truly in the throes of a violent storm, the music has a darker texture now, ambient chords with recurring musical motifs all battle with the sounds of crashing waves, wind, rain and loud thunder-claps. Eventually the music fades into the distance leaving just the sounds of the storm taking us into track 5 Aftermath. The storm slowly recedes leaving a ghostly-sounding choir that is slowly joined by keyboards and flute before suddenly a voice appears with an almost operatic feel… there is a sense of the worst being over as we are once again down by the sea with gentle waves and seagulls.

Track 6 Clear Skies opens with church bells, the message being all is calm once again; Chrissie’s flute drifts over a backing track that gains an increasingly more positive feel to the mood of the music as it progresses. The flute returns over an accompaniment of gentle strings and bright effects before the church bells increase in intensity and the track fades out leaving the village to return to normal now that the storm has passed.

When the Sun has Legs is an impressive album - it manages to capture the feeling of a stormy day really well in just sound and music – if you like your New Age music to be evocative of nature and have a slightly ambient feel then you could do a lot worse than give this album a listen.