Dirk Serries – Low Volume Music

Steve Roach & Dirk Serries "Low Volume Music" CD

Yes, this was a truly jaw-dropping news, when revealed for the first some months ago by Steve and Dirk. Until that moment it was held as a top secret project, now it's a reality, two giants of ambient genre are reunited again after ten years. I am quite sure this news brought happy smiles on faces of many ambient connoisseurs, I am no exception. As announced by the album's title, this collaborative effort deals with soundscaping at its most purest and beautiful, free floating form. Gently circling and soothingly expansive minimal ambience is revealed by the opening, 8-minute composition, "Here". Each listener is immediately invited to a strictly ethereal float, which breathes along with him/her and transports into warmly relaxing inner cosmos. "Whisper" unveils an atmosphere of constancy, with minimal expanses, elusive movements and gentle swirls, and paints hauntingly contemplative sonic images. "Closed" awakes nostalgic moments with peacefully soaring cloudscapes of soothingly submerging aural simplicity and quietness. The next composition, "Bow", absorbs by its deeply sublime and tranquilly expansive spaciousness. "Haze", the closing and longest piece on this journey, clocking over a 15-minute mark, shifts your listening environment into gracefully floating and vaporously sweeping realms of celestial beauty. Don't expect any groundbreaking sonic sculpting and adventure here, just subtle ambient sceneries, considerably warm, quietly relaxing and gently immersive, created by the true masters of the genre. Album's packaging and images nicely correspond with atmospheric blankets. "Low Volume Music" is a pure sonic elixir to nourish your body, mind and spirit!!! Welcome back, Steve & Dirk!!! I will keep an ear to the ground...

Richard Gürtler (Jun 24, 2012, Bratislava, Slovakia)