Lichens — Omns
The tracks are built around a mix of rich and emotional guitar craft both electric and acoustic, banks of angelic and soulful vocals, rich piano textures and on later tracks droning analogue sounding synth craft – that brings back fond memories of early Tangerine Dream at their most organic and gothic. He also sparingly uses sound elements like bird songs, environmental sounds.
The five tracks composed/ improvised cover a lot of genre ground going from ambient, folk, rock, the blues and gothic spacyness- but always weaved tight into the tracks very fabric is the awe inspiring feeling of spiritual and universal wonder. Most surprising it’s done by one man Rob Lowe- who it would seem plays everything and also modifies his voice via peddles to take on feminine and angelic qualities. The only chink in the album/ package is the near on 30 mintue dvd, that though interesting to see Lowe performing his music in the flesh mixed together with other footage- just comes across been rather amateurish and thrown together- I feel with this type of music it’s more rewarding if you disconnect it with the person playing it, giving it a timeless un-manmade feeling. But this is a minor quibble, when faced with the shear quality of material on offer on the audio disk.
A spirit soaring, emotionally charged and individualistic musical statement, made with great musical and spiritual understanding- truly a masterpiece.