The beat is steady and plodding the whole way through. The title track, Leylines as it is a perfect example of simple ketamine trance. It is dreamy and it feels like it never tries to make you like it it is natural and never rushes anything giving the track a lovely feeling of going at your own pace. It has my heart pushed right to edge of a cliff & I can see the huge fall down to the bottom & I have the feeling like I could fall but I never actually do. Stand outs include Oxyd a very soft track that always has me feeling like it is going to kick off into something much harder but never actually does. I think the perfect time & place to listen to this would be with good headphones sitting next to the window of a second storey coffee shop overlooking a busy street and watching everyone as they go passed, see how they interact with each other and with the world. For me this album is the aural equivalent of people watching. These are of course just some examples but every time I listen to the album I see different scenes unfolding. ![]() In the middle of a dance floor at a warehouse party, operating the machines in a factory making something that nobody know what it actually is or walking in the street as a Chinese carnival procession snakes its way through you. ![]() Instead of floating above everything I am in the thick of it. The tracks with more of an upbeat feeling allow for a more active role in the events that unfold in the mind. All of these urban scenes are bathed in that warm ethereal glow and played out silently as if completely detached from my own reality. With the soft trippy beats that massage my mind I can float on in peace dreaming up different situations, a woman silently shouting at her boyfriend in the middle of a street, a man walking home after finishing very late a work, a dog running or even a homeless man trying to stay warm. I really get a feeling of that orange street light that bathes everything in a warm glow that can make you feel toasty even on a winter’s night. For the totally ambient tracks it is easy to float away, I feel like I am rising high through the city, up and over rooftops and looking down at the limited night time activity in the streets below. ![]() Both have a very urban night time feel to them and are very visual allowing my mind to create all kinds of urban scenes for me to watch as I am listening. Leylines has it all, it has some purely soft ambient tracks like the opening Alignments as well as other tracks that are a mix of soft ambience then some pounding ketamine trance then back to ambient like Lysistrata. This I have done with about half of all Ultimae albums I have bought but I have come back to all of them and in the end I have ended up loving them. With this right place, right time and right frame of mind style it can be easy to buy the album not connect and put it on your shelf. ![]() The level of sonic structures and the melancholic feeling that seems to be the calling card of many Ultimae artists, flows over you and I for one never get tired of hearing it. They are the kind of albums that whilst listening to in your living room with the distraction of your partner/kids/pet/work/etc never sound that interesting but take it into a relaxed space without any distractions and his music opens up for you. His first 3 albums, Season 5, Aftermath & Memory Shell were incredibly fine works of art. Vince’s ambient style of soft floating melodies and subtle beats being broken up by big thumping beats is a style that has enthralled me in the past. Aes Dana, Vince Villuis one of the Co-founders of Ultimae Records (which is still one of my favourite labels around), is out with his 4th album Leylines.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |