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Gateway is Echoes Radio's June Pick of the Month. Echoes is a daily two-hour music soundscape, distributed by Public Radio International and broadcast on 130 radio stations from Maine to California. With host John Diliberto, a writer for Billboard, Pulse and other magazines, Echoes brings together a wide array of styles, cross-cultural and trans-millennial, merging cultures and forms, technology and tradition, the ancient past and the possible future.
Roach, Steve Structures From Silence (2001 Remastered Ed.)
As Lonely As Dave Bowman POD (Sam of black tape for a blue girl) ~ 3 for $20
Roach, Steve & Erik Wollo : Stream of Thought
Fang, Forrest phantoms
Projekt is proud to announce the signing of noted Norwegian electronic / ambient guitarist, synthesist and composer Erik Wøllo. Since the mid-80s, Wøllo has released a string of mesmerizingly melodic and original albums culminating in Gateway, his 14th solo release. His recent collaboration with Steve Roach, Stream of Thought (Projekt, 2009), introduced a new audience to his personal signature of introspective atmospherics. Working over two years creating Gateway, Wøllo presents a fine-tuned collection of carefully crafted compositions; electro-symphonies morph through a wide variety of moods, guitar expositions and crescendos. With a minimalist's restrained elegance, Wøllo creates evocative passage through imaginary landscapes by blending dark and light elements. The resulting music is visual, kindling the feeling of nature inspired by the Nordic landscapes of Wøllo's homeland. These epic dimensions are reflected in the beautiful album cover images created by Polish artist Michal Karcz; dramatic, vast, and untouched landscapes symbolize purity and beauty.
"Celestial evocations inspired by the night skies in the land of the midnight sun. It's hard to resist picking an Erik Wøllo album as a CD of the Month." - John Diliberto, Echoes syndicated radio, about Erik's last release
Gateway is both lyrical and rhythmic, emphasizing melodic and structural formations; modern electronic music explores vast panoramas and limitless horizons. Graceful chiming themes ring out against ambient textures and delicate chord structures with a highly listenable appeal. It is a gentle musical journey through soundscapes of synthesizers and electric guitars. Orchestrated layers of sounds make this a deep listening experience where new details are discovered on each successive listening.
"There is always a meditative attitude," Erik reflects, "recollections from dreams and reality suggesting the mysterious. Every artist has their own unique inner landscape that emulates where they were born and raised, influencing the creative expression. By reflecting all the different kinds of music that you have been hearing through your lifetime, Gateway is a mirror of time."
Gateway has 12 tracks carefully sequenced like parts in a symphony or as the soundtrack to a film exploring new undiscovered places. The cinematic songs have unique moods from piece to piece beginning with gentle "Land of Myths," a slow introduction to the story. Wøllo continues with the more rhythmic "First Arrival," launching elements later refined as separate songs. The titles all describe the journey: "A Sublime Place," "The Mental Trail" and "Wetlands." The album ends with a long and sustaining piece, "Thule," suggesting a trip even further north into the future. An open end to a sonic journey.
This album is a new era of Wøllo's music where emotional atmospheres flow into expansive ambient textures. An album that combines intense and serene passages with masterful performances. It is New Instrumental Music with both symphonic qualities and more sublime, varied dynamic structures. Soar in abstract space elements with the unmistakable style of this critically acclaimed artist.
"Erik Wøllo is one of the most consistent artists recording today. He continues to impress me with his composing and performing talent. His music comes across as being both stimulating from an intellectual standpoint yet emotionally satisfying as well." - Bill Binkelman, Zone Music Reporter
My only previous exposure to guitarist Erik Wøllo has been in collaboration with other artists—Steve Roach on "Stream of Thought" and Deborah Martin on "Between Worlds." And while I enjoyed how his textures lent an air of solidity there, to listen to him piloting his own excursion, with every thought, moment and nuance his own, creates a whole new level of appreciation—and brings a strong of "What have I been missing all these years?" In these dozen tracks, each one a complete journey unto itself, lush processed chords and mutated guitar sounds mix with straightforward New Age playing that sometimes edges its way toward a suggestion of rock. Beats course in and out of the mix—stronger in tracks like "The Traveler," with its potent TD-style mix of sequencer and high melodic line giving a tip of the nostalgia hat without coming off as forcibly retro, or the title track, which pulses merrily along as Wøllo weaves a melody through the electronic groove. Beatless tracks here have a soft beauty all their own, like "There Will Be Snow," which drifts quietly along but carries an amazing weight of emotion, and the meditation-perfect ambient piece, "Full Circle." Wøllo navigates these changes in tempo and mood smoothly to craft a singular experience. The flow of the disk is absolutely masterful, a proper manipulation of the listener's emotions and responses to the music. This is a disc I could quite literally listen to all day—and I tell you that from experience! Kudos must also be given for Michael Karcz's cover art. It a stunning, dramatic image, incredibly detailed, and the expanded version inside the gatefold is even more impactive. A superb bit of presentation that heightens the overall experience. (As a good cover should!) I'm sure it's clear to you that Gateway is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD—and I fully expect it to land on virtually every "Best Of" list in the genre this year.
On songs like “Life in Technicolor,” groups like Coldplay try (with the help of Jon Hopkins) to attain the same kind of timeless, shifting mood that is Erik Wollo’s stock in trade. And like them, Erik Wollo brings a minimalist’s sense of austerity and design to expansive synthesizer orchestrations on the heroic strains of “The Traveler.” It’s that perfect Wollo mix of ping-ponging electronic rhythms and melodic pads that sweep in searchlight patterns.
With all the electronics, it’s almost easy to forget that Wollo is a gifted guitarist. Most of the music is generated from a guitar or guitar synthesizer. He can make his six strings sound like an electronic symphony and on the highly ambient tracks that conclude the album, like “The Mental Trail” and “Full Circle,” it sounds nothing like a guitar at all in their glacial motion and vast, horizon-like textures. But on pieces like “First Arrival” he can also pull out twanged liquid leads.
Erik Wollo manages to synthesize influences from Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd to Steve Reich and modern electronica. But as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary instrumental music, he’s truly morphed these sounds into a image evoking modality that is wholly his own. Step through Erik Wollo’s Gateway and you’ll see his world revealed.
Gateway is the Echoes June CD of the Month. We’ll be featuring several tracks from it on Monday, June 7 and the following weekend.
Erik Wøllo has released his 14th studio effort with the arrival of Gateway, an album of 12 uniquely individual tracks that form a superbly memorable collection. The signature of Wøllo's satisfying craftwork is deply reminiscent of the haunting early period Tangerine Dream, with wonderful forays into the soundscapes that remind of the little-heard Michael Hoenig. But none of this is to say that the carefully constructed work of Erik Wøllo is dirivative. In fact, it's so refreshing to hear such grandly orchestrated music in the ambient framework that the first spin of Gateway should have fans of ambient compositions completely in thrall to Erik Wøllo.
The album begins with "Land of Myths," a track that explores the vacated, now desolate landscape once occupied by German composer, Michael Hoenig, with its dark but strangely peaceful night. Hoenig created an acoustical world that warmly invited you to immerse in its emotional atmosphere, and Erik Wøllo does the same with his gorgeous and immersive opener. Wøllo follows it up with the brilliantly played "First Arrival," obviously a developing soundtrack for the beauty of an entry into an alien world (or one visiting us for the first time. Earth is engagingly beautiful from outer space and even takes my breath away seeing approaching photos of it). The composition has electric guitar in it that elevates the track beyond that of an eerie ambient flow.
No ground is left untouched within these 12 tracks. There is plenty of aural beauty for you to slip into. If you found Tangerine Dream's soundtrack for Sorcerer to be deeply surrounding, then you'll also find "The Traveler" to take you in that direction. If a frosty world is your ideal, then the richly layered "There Will Be Snow" is your arctic roadmap. And if a threatening environment is what pulls you forward, then "Wetlands" unsettling beauty is the perfect coat for you to slip into. It closes with the beautiful "Thule."
No matter your preference, Erik Wøllo's new album, Gateway is the key to multiple dreamworlds. It also unveils an extraordinary talent, one that draws on the influence of the masters of the past, yet crafts music that is uniquely his own, music that will etch Erik Wøllo into your mind as one to be enshrined with those same masters.
Immeasureably recommended!
For years, Erik Wøllo is known for his expert skills in building highly imaginary and emotional music, building a bridge between grand symphonic realms and gentle, serene atmospheres.
On "Gateway", his 14th solo release, Erik takes things to a new exciting level, offering a 70-minute grand breathing space of sparkling guitar work and expansive electronics which acts as a metaphor of multiple inner sonic landscapes.
Moreover, this fine-tuned collection of well shaped, sculptured and crafted compositions reveals a fine eye for detail, which sees Mr Wøllo display his lyrical music on a giant virtual canvas while it smoothly morphs through lighter and darker environments and shades.
In its core depths, one can occasionally hear shimmers inspired by the haunting Scandinavian landscapes making Erik's music a celebration expressed through both poignant and melodic leads as the more sedate, introspective musings.
The 12 carefully sequenced parts found on "Gateway" merge the best of both worlds as we look out over a vast but always harmonic and logical sonic scenery that seems to reveal new corners, heights and depths at very new spin of the album in the cd-player.
I classify "Gateway" as another key-recording for all lovers of evocative ambient and symphonic orchestrated sound painting. Chapeau, Erik!