Perhaps if it weren’t for minimalism’s ability to mesmerize with its abundance of repetition, Matt Starling’s all-flugelhorn rendition of Terry Riley’s Dorian Reeds might come off as, well, annoying. The blame here, what little there is, lays entirely with Riley, not Starling. You will need to be firmly in the “I love minimalism” camp to enjoy, let alone get through, this composition. That being said, kudos to Matt Starling for taking this challenging work, originally written to saxophone and tape delays, and transcribing it for brass. (Not to mention raising the backing for this release on Indiegogo.) Computers are used to approximate the effect of the delays, and Starling recorded large amounts of the individual modules that make up the piece before editing it into the form offered here. The structure of Dorian Reeds is built from increasingly complex loops of those modules—phrases, as with Riley’s In C—that the musician plays, only to have them spat back at him almost immediately by the “delays,” creating a sort of duet (or deeper, as the sound goes along) with himself. The layers of repetition turn into drones and the drones turn hypnotic, but more often than I might prefer, there are sections where the horn starts poking you in the forehead over and over. I do find myself, however, trying to peer into the math at play, looking, aurally speaking, into the way the lines cross and weave and how passages evolve interdependently, thrive briefly in their latest form, and then disappear.

Dorian Reeds (For Brass) is one of those recordings that makes me feel that if I was perhaps a bit more worldly in my musical tastes, I would “get it” better. I do like minimalism a la Riley and Reich, and quite enjoyed Starling’s other dip into Riley’s oeuvre, the Salt Lake Electric Ensemble’s superb take on In C. But this is super-aggressively minimalist, and its appeal is probably more scholarly than pedestrian. It must be noted that this is the first time the work has been created using something other than Riley’s recommended sax, and it works well (I would think, in my layman’s opinion) as a study in the composer’s style and its possibilities. Starling’s work on this is exemplary. He put years into its creation, and it shows. It is complex, rich, challenging, and excellently realized. Coming at it as a casual listener, however, I find it somewhat above my head and outside my tastes. Listeners more attuned to modern compositional works should most definitely come in and experience this.

Available from Matt Starling’s Bandcamp page.

Madoka Ogitani’s EP Take A Walk is a bit on the precious side, with its folk music influences, playful inclusion of toy piano, and its bright springy tone, including chirpy nature sounds. It suffers a little bit from too much of the tinny, sharp notes from the toys. Which is a shame, because the core of what’s here is great acoustic work on piano and guitar. It’s clean, richer than its simplicity would suggest, and a bit uplifting. At under 20 minutes long, there shouldn’t be time for the more sugary aspects to make you tired of them, but for me they tend to get in the way of the good stuff. The first two tracks, “Wind” and “Humming,” share a central theme—so much so that I went back in to re-listen to see if this is one of those releases where the artist just twists a central conceit over and over and calls it a day. It’s not, as far as I can tell, and the difference between these two tracks is just enough to make the idea work. Well, until the tinny stuff comes in. “Wind” begins primarily as a duet between guitar and piano. Other elements lace in lightly to round it out. “Humming” ups the precious ante by giving the main duties over to the toy instruments. From there it tends to be more of the same: good acoustic music just alike enough to make you wonder if you just heard it, intruded upon by too much cute.

Take A Walk will work better tucked into a deep shuffle than it does as a straight-on listen. The core idea, as noted, is solid and Ogitani’s playing is precise and pleasant. In the times when I’ve had my review queue on shuffle, it arrives into the mix as a shiny and happy thing, and that brightness is welcome. But there’s too much sameness of sound and over-the-top precious play stuffed into so tight of a space. I like Take A Walk, I just need it spread out more. Have a listen and decide.

Available from La Bél Netlabel.

Floating White Abyss nestles comfortably in the place between long-form ambient and spacemusic. In this place there is a lot of familiarity, but through the three tracks here Darren Rogers provides a consistently soft and calming sensibility that works around the idea that you’ve heard this before. To some degree the music is constructed simply; Rogers’ layering is not deep, but each element that goes in has a soulful feel. Overall, the album is full of genuine emotion. There are points where I feel it starts to fall a little too much into the play chord/hold chord mode, but then Rogers will hit a swell of pure beauty, and it’s like a reminder of why I started to enjoy this music in the first place. Still, when “Floating” goes through a stretch with scale-ascending tones repeating over choral pads, it runs the risk of tipping the cliché balance toward the unfavorable. But it goes away and the track gives itself over to a classic spacemusic feel—you know the one, where we’ve cut the engines and are just drifting in the vast, shiny void—and all I want to do is listen to it. “White” is built on whisper-quiet textures and a droning hiss of wind. Of the three, this is perhaps the most meditative. Rogers indulges in the occasional burst of angelic voices, but otherwise keeps this one on the down-low. “Abyss” opens with title-contradicting chime tones that ring brightly. It eventually finds its way into a slightly darker place that draws on an approachable dissonance, but largely remains warm and welcoming.

As by-the-book as Floating White Abyss tends to be, it is deep and quiet enough to have merited a number of long looping sessions. I find myself often aware that I might prefer more density to the sound, but there is something about the weight of emotion here that lets me work through it. This one will resonate more with listeners whose tastes run to the Demby/Serrie side of things, that off-to-space-we-go sensibility. Definitely worth a listen.

Available from the Imagineer Records Bandcamp site.

System VII is an album that is either trying to do too much or simply does certain things considerably better than others. Sometimes it wants to be an industrial album; sometimes it’s experimental; sometimes it heads in other directions entirely. It’s when artist IX decides that this is an industrial album that it fares best. That’s how it opens, with “Breaking Faith” building up slowly on deep pulses, a too-cliché voiceover, and a cool beat before busting out some big power chords. Having established its potential for gritty energy, it then unfortunately proceeds to let the air out of its own tires with the next track, “Recursive Functions.” It plods forth, repeating itself with a woodwind phrase and some artsy electronic treatments. The album recovers on the next track, IX, and returns to the potency of the opener, but by now we have established a sort of indecisive imbalance that carries through the rest of the album. For me, things don’t get all that interesting again until “The Machine (Parts I-III).” It come off like a lost Tangerine Dream number with a little more emphasis on powerful drumming. There are meaty low chords that would do Klaus proud, and its chugging meter turns catchy pretty quickly. Fans of older analog will dig into this right away, and will love the last couple minutes. “Master Race” offers one more blast of power. It gnashes its teeth at you the whole time with heavily distorted snippets that come in bursts. Drop outs reveal an underlay of tick-tock rhythms and a little chipset influence. The electronic drums here can feel a bit thin at times—although perhaps appropriately so, given the track’s overall late-80s feel. You’ll get it when you hear it.

As for the other tracks, they don’t raise much more than a shrug from me. The more experimental tracks, like “Division by Zero” and “Disparity Fields,” have me reaching for the skip button. “Immortal” and “Serena’s Lament” bring us to a quieter place fronted by piano. But the sonata-esque line in “Serena’s Lament” over-repeats itself and the pseudo-classical feel is a bit heavy handed. “Immortal” features a single, high, repeating note that, after a solid minute, feels like getting poked in the forehead. And it keeps going. System VII has spots where the repetitive elements just wear out their welcome. IX has also tucked a bit of a science-fiction narrative into the album via vocal drops, most notably in “IXIAN Archive Entry 119-27.” But it’s not enough to keep me from wishing more of the album was the meaty industrial-influence stuff that works best.

Available from Bandcamp.

I’ll start by saying that I enjoy Frore’s Cyclic Movement, but then I have to temper the statement by wondering out loud if I like it because of how much it reminds me of my favorite Steve Roach tribal works. I say that with all due respect and appreciation; this album lands smack-dab in the bullseye of my musical wheelhouse, nails every tribal trope that I like, and sends me into a fairly deep groove. But if you’re going to follow footsteps, you have to accept the “sounds like.” Frore (aka Paul Casper) does a good job of pairing off airy washes with familiar percussive sounds. The tracks here tend to start small, leading off with a quiet passage or drone, then build intensity through layers. While we’re on the subject of intensity, Frore piles it on in the opening track, “Spirit Call.” From a fairly innocuous start, this piece rises up on waves of percussion, from the clatter of sticks to deeper drums. Flute brings in a breathy organic tone over chants that come up out of nowhere. And then, just to drive the ritual home, there are screams. (Just wanted to warn the faint of heart.) “Northern Winds” and “Gavia” are the most Roach-influenced tracks here. There’s really no escaping comparison, but they’re still good tracks. Which, again, may be more a function of how many of my standard tribal-ambient pleasure centers they ping. “Gavia” brings the combination of lush pads and interwoven percussion lines, accented with the occasional call on ocarina. I find that there are places on Cyclic Movement where I become too aware of the loop I’m in. Although it’s the nature of the beast, and plenty of this music relies on repetition, artists do need to be mindful of the dynamics and the need for shifts, however subtle.* While a loop can become hypnotic, if the repetition is blatantly noticeable, particularly in the use of forceful elements, it can pull a listener out. This came to mind in listening to “Fading Embers.” Like “Gavia,” it’s pads and percussives, with a sequencer line pulling it forward. To my ears, the sequencer gets a bit static and then I’m out of the moment. Other listeners’ experience may vary.

Cyclic Movement has a lot to offer tribal ambient fans. It may very well be that I listen to far too much music, so the associations and the things I pick out as library elements may temper my experience. Hear things enough and you recognize things. But there is good power here, and it’s worth checking out.

Available from Relaxed Machinery.

*I feel, for whatever reason, that I need to justify here that this is my opinion as a listener, not someone who can actually create the music.