Australis - The Gates of Reality
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CD Details
Artist: AustralisEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2008-11-22
Music Label: Essential Noises
Soundtracks:
- The Gates of Reality
- Return to Tarshish
- Ephemerage
- Promises of Light
- Paqta Kutemunqa
- Purple Dreams
- Little Clockmaker
- Treasure the Moment
- Illusion of Company
- The Hoodoo's Whisper
- Thresholds of Devotion
- Momentary Truths
- Essentia
- Adventus Sortis
Music reviews of The Gates of Reality
Music Review: Australis - The Gates of Reality
Rating: 4 Stars
STYLE
Dramatic enigmatic instrumentals full of emotion and imagination. Australis knit together a broad range of evocative sounds and stirring atmospheres on this second album. At centre stage are sweeping themes of synthetic sound - string-like, chiming, electronic - but all turned somewhat away from the obvious with deftly applied effects. Piano, electric and programmed guitar melodies also feature along with operatic female voices, soaring and heavenly. World sounds frequently appear, yet these are not overdone - tracks are not centred on global ephemera - rather these are introduced as sonic seasoning, associative flavouring. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of this album is found among the marginal sounds and interludes - peculiar secondary lines rippling behind the leads, shadowy textures billowing in quieter corners, touches of musical theatre such as creaking, dripping and other environmental recordings - Australis has done a great job of setting a suitable mood for each piece through these surrounding details. Human utterances pepper the various tracks; child-like speech, whispered words - male and female musings, there are even some distant monks at one point.
MOOD
The Gates of Reality has a magical story book feel running throughout. This is one of those albums to conjure up dreams and fantasies - especially suited to low light listening. Many pieces have powerfully climactic passages where the music peaks into moving heights before dispersing gradually away, others carry a less obvious emotional melancholy - downbeat compositions that tug at the heart evoking a sense of nostalgia or dimly grasped memory.
ARTWORK
The artwork accompanying the album is well produced and in keeping with the tone of the music. A wire bird cage, door open tilts into a rippled dune of sand each contour heavy with the shadows left behind by a setting sun. Inside the cage is a sunflower - barely perceived - almost in silhouette. The arid panorama is beautified by this low light crepuscular mood - heavy grey cloud underlit with orange. The whole image has effective antiquing textures and fine scratches that further develop the mystique of the package. On the back a close up of the cage before a deeper sunset acts as backdrop to the tracklist - each with time alongside. The insert opens into three panels - on the outer spread is an alternative cage and sand image below a somewhat more fiery sky - here is a second tracklist and a quote from The White Codices contemplating the nature of reality. The flip side of the insert is full of information: credits and thanks leftmost, words and explanation centre and to the right; contact and website details rightmost.
OVERALL
This second CD from Utah based Australis comes four years after the debut album Lifegiving. Clearly there has been a lot of growth in the intervening period as this latest release shows a considerably greater depth and maturity of sound. The Gates of Reality is released via Essential Noises and contains fourteen tracks mostly around the five minute mark. Dream-master Oscar is joined by a number of collaborating artists on the album; poet Virginia Luna, Andean musician/singer Alvaro Aguayo, composer/producer Roger Subirana; and singers Mornie Sims and Rebecca Farraway. Overall this is very solid presentation - it does deliver the fantasy, it does touch the emotions and it does have themes that you will remember, unconsciously humming as you go about your day or drift into sleep.
WHO WILL LIKE THIS ALBUM
If you enjoy music that will likely be labelled 'new age' but has that something extra; that romantic drama; that sense of musical theatre; that fairy tale setting - this is an album well worth exploring. The Gates of Reality will appeal to fans of Enigma, Amethystium, Mythos, Achillea. Have a listen at the Australis website - but be warned it's an absorbing site, you might not come back quickly.
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