Review of 'Just Music Cafe Vol. 4: The Ambient Zone' for Artrocker magazine

Now, I know what you’re thinking: that a review about an album called The Ambient Zone will send you to sleep just as quickly as the music in question does, that there’s only so much one can say about an LP which is bound to be pretty well entirely comprised of slightly variable noises that all suspiciously sound like they came from a whale. And you’d be right. Lucky, then, that this is no ordinary ambience album. Sure The Ambient Zone makes use of the stereotypical flute-sounding instrument (Digitorial’s Sense) and has cringe-inducing song titles that could only be on an album of this kind (Viragi’s Slowtide), but what relaxation album doesn’t? It is telling that, whilst it might get the job done, Marconi Union’s Weightless (voted by Time Magazine to be the 11^th best invention of 2011), compared to its counterparts, is particularly unexceptional. Whilst it must be admitted that none of these tracks will get the heart pumping like, say, the prices of The Rolling Stones reunion tour will, the number of moments that seize the listener’s attention for musical reasons is unexpectedly high. The combination of piano and guitar on Dan Arborise’s Flicker is particularly effective, for example, Honeyroot makes good use of especially soothing vocals (Radiant) for another, whilst the conveniently named Loner lets a simple piano and nothing else work the magic on Beneath The Ivy. And yet the surprises do not end just there. Sure enough Echaskech’s Little Rays starts off in typical ambient style with its ethereal infused electronica then bam!, half a minute in, a post dubstep-worthy bass line is dropped. Just as you weren’t expecting the use of such exciting punctuation (the exclamation mark) and the word ‘dubstep’ in this review, so too was I not expecting to be so entertained by an album who’s primary purpose is to help people sleep.

4/5