Bola ‎– Soup

I honestly would've paid my 25 bucks and more to get my hands on the first and last tracks. If albums were priced based on quality like food is, then this album would cost 200 dollars!

This album was described perfectly to me recently with one word: Celestial. I'm not religious, but if ever there was an appropriate soundtrack for the ascent to "heaven" then this is it.

As fond as I am of "nasty", when "nice" can be as good as this then I'm not going to complain. Mr Fitton has excelled himself on this album, creating some of the most sublime, dreamy soundscapes and journeys I've ever heard. His ability to create atmospheres that tug on the heartstrings and bring a tear to the eye while simultaneously making one feel distinctly weird is displayed here at it's fullest.

Strange and beautiful ambient washes ride effortlessly over odd, meandering bass sequences and subtle, deep and slow rhythms. I think it's important to play this on a decent system so you can really hear and feel the interactions between the bottom end and the sounds that envelop it. It's hard not to feel like you're floating while this album is playing.

As many times as I listen to it, this album will always remind me of the first time I heard it. Bola had cancelled his appearance at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival at Camber Sands, UK in April 2003. Instead of Bola being replaced by another act, his music was played in absentia. This was the third day of the festival and I was very close to exceeding my physical and mental limits of endurance. Whenever I hear "Soup", I can see the room around me, as viewed from the floor, feel the carpet underneath me, feel the madness returning. The day after I got back from ATP, my mental state was such that only listening to Bola albums could make me feel normal, where normal had become the seemingly endless magic of ATP.

SKAM has done it again. You thought they couldn’t follow up the seminal release of Boards Of Canada’s Music Has The Right To Children but you were wrong. Bola comes from a three-year hiatus to bring you one of the most beautiful ambient albums of all time. Very nostalgic because of the nature of the production it sounds as if it could have been recorded circa 1995. The album is very refreshing and smoothly balanced. Characterized by light beats and meandering synths lines, and the occasional heavly beat driven song, a la W.I.K. Another of one Fitton’s attributes is to make an extremely layered song but intertwine sound so effectively and make his complex sound that no one can match. Highlights are Versivo, Forcasa 1 and Aguilla, but the whole album is nothing short of faultless. But what can you expect from the man that assisted with engineering and production of Autechre’s Incunabula, a key originator of Gescom and gave SKAM the push start it needed to make it the label it is now. Pick up this album as soon as possible. Now that it has been re-pressed its widely available and includes beautiful artwork by Michael England.