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Atharva:
Ivy Day in the Committee Room
Imagine Im speaking these words to you in a hushed tone. Im telling you to close your eyes. Relax. Take a deep breath. Now I want you to imagine yourself somewhere far away, somewhere quiet, somewhere you can be alone, somewhere you can have time to think. Relax, I said. Take another deep breath. Float away to that faraway place. Just like hypnosis, Atharvas Ivy Day in the Committee Room takes you out of yourself. As you are lulled by its muted, ambient swirls, swells and swooshes, you cant help feeling calmed, almost intoxicated. Joshua Schuler, the sole member of Atharva, must have been dreaming of someplace a whole lot more interesting than his home of Lubbock, Texas as he created the dazzling, sometimes confounding, predominantly-electronic soundscapes featured on this 57-minute odyssey. At moments, one can imagine being transported to a late-night rave in the middle of the desert. And what a strange journey it is. In fact, odyssey is perhaps the perfect word to describe Ivy Day. As with Stanley Kubricks epic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, there are moments here when things dont necessarily seem to be moving forward, but merely hanging, suspended in space. On the albums masterpiece, the nearly 12-minute-long Decasia, a decidedly zero-gravity feeling permeates; the songs shimmering, ethereal hereisnowhere buzz is light enough to lift you off the ground, yet so undefined as to leave you wondering whether this can only be one-way travel, Major Tom-style. While there are a few numbers here carried by percolating jungle/drum n bass beats (Roni Size came to mind), most of the twelve tracks are backbone free, relying on the thickness of their atmospheres to keep you interested. Schuler piles sound upon sound, and yet the tunes never become dense. At their best, they produce a meditative effect, manifesting the Buddhas fullness-in-emptiness/emptiness-in-fullness philosophy in sound, reveling in the moments stillness. Of course Brian Enos ambient work is an obvious reference, but you can hear traces of everything from Nine Inch Nails to My Bloody Valentine on Ivy Day. Another notable track, Small Town Blues is reminiscent of Radioheads ambient rock a la OK Computer. The album isnt perfect, though. There are a few keyboard tones Schuler uses that skirt by John Tesh/Yanni New Age territory, and though he keeps them to a very bare minimum, his coarse vocals dont always suit their lush backdrops, such as on Adaptations. But taken as a whole, there is a lot to be said for the way this individual man has created such a convincing, enveloping universe through such a minimalist approach.
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