Elve - Infinite Garden

This album takes the skills of previous releases by Matt Hillier (as "Ishq" and "Ishvara") and refines the essence of them... while the Ishq and Ishvara releases had some more percussive and some elements disturbing the warmth and peace they spread here and there, this is one pure, heavenly, ethereal, most peaceful soundscape - the album title couldn't be more fitting. Ripples of bells in the rain, angelic choirs, heavenly synth pads.

If there's something like dark ambient, this album is most likely the opposite of it. Its completely lacking any droney, low and towering bass pads. It reminds me of the early Inoue/Namlook collaborations a bit, but at the same time its so much more mature but innocent, easy and light yet with depth. If I sound like an idiot now you should probably listen to the album and you'll understand. :-)

There's no recognizable story or plot to me. Ignore the tracklist, its just some indexing points with names if you ask me - the tracks are floating into each other mostly, connected with birds singing, rain falling, and the music is just there, going nowhere in a positive sense, and it leaves me deeply impressed. That dude is so much in a league of his own, I can't say anything but *WOW*.