John Beltran - Earth & Nightfall

To write a review of this superlative album is hard enough but it would always take me back to 1996 when i was going through a very stressful time personally & I would always be playing the tracks Mutualism, The Dawn & Anticipation in succession, over & over followed by Vienna at end, as if the music had a personal message to me & to my inner most anxieties.

Not to say the other tracks have no relevance as they are all part of a cohesive theme & portrait that Beltran that knows & paints so well & it's beautiful.

An extremely personal time for me & this album just captivated it all.

Beltran's Masterpiece - never beaten & never will be.

Where do I start? Dug this one out of the old pile about 2 weeks ago and it has been on near constant play since then. A forgotten classic maybe. Delicate music hinting on IDM, Detroit (Classic) Techno and even classical music. Short overall playing length (45mins or so) but what a journey, Aquatic is probably my favourite track on it, very Detroit sounding warm techno, but on the whole nothing on this package dissapoints. So glad I came back to it.

John Beltram, one of Detroit’s undersung heroes, offers his first album, Earth and Nightfall, which combines the more familiar Detroit techno strains with some lovely ambience. “Sub-Surface,” for example, mixes echoing synth washes with delicate acoustic guitar strumming for a dreamy effect. Though the entire album brims with sound and talent, it doesn’t quite have the quality that elevates it above the preponderance of electronic music in the world. But don’t get me wrong, the music itself is still very good, great for late night drives in a futuristic car –- maybe a gas/electric hybrid.