Øystein Jørgensen sheds his Ambient Fabric identity for his latest release, Imagine, and offers up another set of well-executed spacemusic tracks. Once again Jørgensen takes the listener on a ride that systematically pares away the lighter trappings of the genre to bring them, by disc’s end, to a sort of dark-ambient-style dead space. On the glimmering-star side of things, the first five tracks, “Sound of Stars” through “Endless,” are filled with sweeping synth pads that reach out to the endless distances and all the requisite sonic drama that goes with it. “Looking Back in Time” is especially well-done in this regard, Jørgensen’s patient pacing of his spacey drones creating a true sense of vastness. With the track “Distant,” a slight sense of uncertainty slithers into the sound, beginning the movement toward the finality of the voyage. With “Event Horizon” things take a turn for the denser and darker. Jørgensen makes the change with ease and style, letting a lost-oxygen hiss command the first minute of the track before the sound begins to open up into a growing intensity of sound, our ship caught in the gravity well and picking up speed of its own accord. The sound gets louder, thicker, more abrasive, and then pushes us out the other side, into “Another Dimension.” This track nudges us into something of an isolationist zone, the sounds sparse and packing a minor industrial edge. Jørgensen makes it uncomfortable for us, and carries that feel into “Lost,” which simply fades with no distinct conclusion–the guideless and hopeless voyage going ever on in cold space. Imagine sticks to fairly familiar imagery in both its spacemusic side and its dark side, but Jørgensen shows that he can escort the through either area with engaging style.

Available from Auraltone.