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Just ordered mine. 16 Euro= ~$26. God the USD really sucks lately and I don't think it's going to get better anytime soon.

Looking sooooo forward to this. Cold Summer is one of my favorite cds ever.

Listened to it this evening. Loved it. Different than our beloved Cold Summer, but it has the same *tone*, it's just that the...hm... how can I say this... I can't say syncopation because there are no beats... tempo, but there's no changes in time... waaaaaait, actually there are, and they took me by surprise. because it was so unobtrusive and gentle, I noticed a few seconds after the fact.

It's much quieter than Cold Summer. It's only at 00.36 that you really start to begin to hear anything and again, it's also a very gentle, gradual thing.

I'm going to bed and in the meatime will listen to this. And write a better review later.

Anyway, out of a total 5 IlexStars available for ratings, Lull's Like a Slow River gets:

:perfekt: :perfekt: :perfekt: :perfekt: :perfekt:

Tomorrow I'll elaborate more. Sleep now.

http://www. cyclicdefrost. com/blog/?p=2047

" It’s been a long, strange trip for Mick Harris. Once upon a time he was the drummer with Napalm Death, (in)famous for compacting heavy metal into super-concentrated tracks of sometimes just a few seconds duration. But he’s gone to the other extreme with his dark ambient project Lull. Like a Slow River is his eight or ninth album under this name, and it’s a challenging listen. Five tracks are listed on this 60 minute outing, but it might as well be one long suite, as the pieces all sound more or less the same. This disc exists in a hinterland somewhere between music and noise - there’s no rhythm, harmony, or melody - and yet… If it’s noise, it’s not confrontational in the style of Whitehouse et al. It’s the aural equivalent of standing on a hill, listening to the sound of the wind, looking out across a bleak, barren landscape - and in fact one of the tracks is titled ‘Treeless Grounds’. The overall sound is reminiscent of Thomas Koner (and indeed Lull & Koner shared space on Virgin’s groundbreaking Ambient 4: Isolationism CD back in 1994), but not as austere. Lull is unlikely to ever find himself on the cover of glossy magazines, but the few people who do buy this release will savour it, the way you would an expensive bottle of wine.

-Ewan Burke "


The pieces all sound more or less the same? Methinks Ewan wasn't listening closely enough. And I would hesitate to call it bleak. It didn't strike me as bleak at all- solitary doesn't necessarily equal bleak. Or barren. Far from barren. Still, quiet waters run deep, Ewan. To be honest, it really gets on my nerves how it seems to be hip to describe "dark ambient" as "bleak", "barren", or even "dark". Why put those preconceptions in the listeners' heads to begin with? Stillness isn't bleak, isn't negative. Isn't hopeless. That isn't what this kind of music is about, imho.
Let us form our own interpretations and introspections, please. This review sounds rather dismissive.

(And a mention of him working with John Zorn would have been nice, but Harris is so prolific his list of credits would go on and on and on... but Zorn *is* a big one...)

While Cold Summer felt more introverted to me in almost a sensory-deprivation tank kind of way, Like a Slow River extends itself more prominently outwards, but it is extremely subtle, slow, and gentle- he's right on the mark when he says there's no melody, rhythm, or harmony. As I alluded, I was surprised at how gradual this was done, and how well-crafted it was.

But with CS, there was a pervasive undertone of unease throughout the piece. River to me feels much different. Closer to serene but not quite there. And that's fine. While CS keeps its distance from the listener, River requires one to engage with it, as fully as possible. There are extremely delicately and almost obsessively meticulously crafted sequences that one needs to devote all attention to, in order to appreciate how gifted Harris is at composing his pieces. You have to completely submerge yourself in the textures of his work and find your way out again, with the piece. If this is your thing (Vor, I'm looking at you ), as Ewan says, if it is your thing, you will savor it.

And Ewan, don't say "one of the few people to buy it"... we're trying to encourage Harris to release *more* Lull, not less!

CS is more accessible, to be honest and that isn't a bad thing. CS is on my top 5 recordings ever. With more discoveries each time I pay closer attention to River, it'll probably end up on there too, alongside Cold Summer and Jonathan Coleclough's "Cake".

(The latter is out of print, btw, so if anyone can find it, buy it for me and I'll pay for it. Seriously. I love, adore, that cd.)

OK, enough of my babbling. Hope this was semi-decent. I'm not a very good reviewer, I'm afraid.

And sorry for posting to the forum so much lately... guess I'm just excited about the my vacation.... :sch:

Reminds me of Monty Python's Meaning of Life "That's all you Americans ever do- talk, talk, talk!"

Vor, this is your fault, you asked for a lengthy review!