Lichens - Omns [Kranky - 2007]Omns manages to mix deeply spiritual air with psychedelics, ambience and powerful emotionally tinged rocking guitar scapes. Pulling the whole thing off in epic and soaring fashion, never becoming contrived or indulgent – this is truly music to loose ones self in 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. Roger Batty
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