Elegant, calming spacemusic awaits in your journey to Meg Bowles’ The Shimmering Land. This is Bowles’ sixth release, and her second in two years following a long hiatus, and it reinforces that she is an important voice in the genre. Across six tracks, Bowles barely raises her musical voice above a whisper, opting instead to make its impression via depth and dimension. With a practiced hand, she places airy layers one atop the next, mixing the pure simplicity of ambient structures with nicely understated melodic elements. “Nightwalk Across the Isle of Dreams” showcases that blend, the melody drifting in via woodwind and plucked-string sounds. When she opts to add rhythm to her flows, it’s with subtle pulses from the sequencer; they arrive not to intrude but to lightly amplify the sensation. You hear it in “Beneath the Radiant Stars,” a present but distant ripple in her spacey, panoramic drifts. On the lush and serene “Venus Rising,” the sequencer heads into a higher register, casting star-shine glimmer across long string pads. This has a classic spacemusic feel to it, a bit of nostalgia pinging at your long-time-listener pleasure centers.
The Shimmering Land quietly invites itself into your listening space. It makes no demands as it patiently fills your head and works its soothing, aural-imagery magic. The feel is always warm and utterly calm as Bowles spreads out her vistas before you and floats you through them. This is a wonderful disc to have playing at the end of the day and into the evening, helping you wind down and re-center. An absolute must-hear from this (quietly) powerful voice. Let it loop.
After way too long an absence from the ambient music scene (her last release was 1999's brilliant From the Dark Earth), Meg Bowles has made her triumphant return with A Quiet Light, and she has not missed a beat. If anything, her time away seems to have sharpened her focus and increased her ambient and spacemusic chops. A Quiet Light is an excellent album and heralds Bowles reemergence into well-deserved prominence as not only one of the few women recording and releasing ambient and spacemusic but as a major player in the arena as well. Fans of her last two releases, Blue Cosmos and the aforementioned From the Dark Earth will recognize some of Bowles' signature touches scattered throughout the six tracks on A Quiet Light but there are plenty of new wrinkles here as well.
The CD is superbly engineered by the artist's husband, Richard Price, who also co-produced the album. The sound is sumptuous yet subtle, full of nuance if listened to intently on headphones; but the CD is equally enjoyable (as all good ambient should be) played in the background during quiet times of relaxation or contemplation.
Bowles drew inspiration for the music on A Quiet Light from her fascination for "liminal space" which, for example, is typified by the threshold we cross as day becomes night and light changes our perceptions of our surroundings. She refers to these times as "...moments of pure grace, where one can suddenly become transported into a greater, deeper reality that exists parallel to, yet outside of, ordinary awareness."
Track titles paint an accurate picture of the music contained on the CD: "Nocturnal Flight," "Forest Glade," "Beyond the Far Shore," and "A Quiet Light," to name four of the six selections. The mood is equal parts serene and mysterious, haunting but not dark or foreboding except in the subtlest ways. To say the music has a fluid quality is understating the case, as Bowles’ synth washes, pads, and chords seem to flow and ebb with an almost organic sensibility.
The opening Nocturnal Flight opens with expansive synthesizer textures flowing into each other and breaking apart (sampled overtone vocals are understated). Sparse bass notes provide counterpoint to the sustained tones and warm drones/washes. Very slowly over the twelve-minute track, the bass notes begin to accelerate in tempo until a distinct midtempo beat is achieved, accented by a series of bell tones, while the main synth melody begins to attain a more specific sensation of flight and soaring, hence the cut's title, obviously. Glacial Dawn, which is next, also merits its title as the drones and textures evoke barely any movement whatsoever as well as containing a perceptible element of "cold (despite the presence of some synth chorals in amidst the assorted other sounds). A crescendo effect at the six-minute mark seems to convey the moment the sun finally appears in full above the icy blueness of the glacier.Forest Glade opens with music that may evoke emerging from an arboreal landscape into a clearing. The subtle enhancement of the introduction of what sounds like running water, accompanied by gentle organ-like tones, paints the track with an especially lovely pastoral calmness. As with “Nocturnal Flight,” after about four minutes, Bowles introduces an overt rhythmic element, this time a series of sequenced notes, laid over the lone and forlorn sounding lead synth line (which has a strong horn-like characteristic). “Chant for a Liquid World” introduces fuller synth chorals and even a solo vocal line, sung in a distinctly church-like fashion. These angelic voices are counterpointed at the outset by an assortment of burbling sounds which eventually dissipate and are replaced by overlapping synthesizer tones, washes and textures.
I could continue describing the remaining two tracks (Beyond the Far Shore and A Quiet Light) but by now you should have an accurate picture of what the album holds in store. Bowles excels at crafting long ambient pieces (the shortest selection is 8:22) that evolve over their running course, but in such gradual ways that, while the changes are perceptible, they are never in the least bit jarring. Her juggling of the various layered synthesizers is formidable and displays her supreme artistry. A Quiet Light heralds Meg Bowles return to prominence in ambient and, in particular, the subgenre of classic-era spacemusic. I frankly can’t think of a more essential album to buy this year than this one.
Seductively graceful and contemplatively hushed, Meg Bowles’ return to music, A Quiet Light, is a classic spacemusic disc that’s extremely easy to get completely lost in. In her liner notes, Bowles talks about the concept of liminal space, “a territory between the worlds which can feel intensely private yet vast.” A Quiet Light becomes the key to that territory, like gates easing open in front of you as you listen. It’s a deep relaxation disc, but it has passages that percolate with subtle energy–like the delightful, unexpected moment when the opener, “Nocturnal Flight,” suddenly shifts from gossamer drifts to rise just slightly under a cool, upbeat melody. In every track, Bowles’ long, soft pads absolutely teem with emotional phrasing, and her atmospheric touches, like the stream running under “Forest Glade,” are laid in with a perfected mastery to elevate the overall effect. Bowles is at her best here with “Chant for A Liquid World.” This is, quite simply, a stunning track that heads directly to your soul. With sacred-music overtones provided by sampled voices and a breath-slowing pace, this prayer in sonic form is, for me, the centerpiece of the disc. It eases into the horizon’s-edge feel of “Beyond the Far Shore.” Sighing chords and a gently played melody dance quietly together and the overall feel is like watching the onset of twilight.
The six tracks here glide by in exactly one hour, and it is a perfect hour of listening. Bowles knows how to pull at your emotions with sound, and she spends the time guiding you through her ideas and intentions. You will feel every note here. I genuinely cannot say enough about this disc.
Calm, beautiful and superbly affecting, A Quiet Light is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.
With each album release Meg Bowles discloses more depth and complexity. The CD A Quiet Light(64'13") creates an aural realm alluringly suspended between heaven, earth and space. A wonderful interplay of contrasting harmonies, gentle textures and a most benevolent bearing, this work has its own natural almost tidal rhythm. The mesmerizing swirl of synthesized tones bestows a dreamy inwardness upon the listener. Moments of shear musical power may be felt within the sonic sheen of ethereal voices, warm strings and breathing waves of muted electronic forms. There is a delicacy to this music that gives it a measure of beauty very rare in the field of Electronic Music. From its long sustaining tones, to the quiet patterned pulsing of bleeping notes, and the slow reveal of each dark passage - A Quiet Light rings with the truth of deep human feelings. Bowles' music conjures space, light and a sense of scale - and has evolved beyond its obvious influences. With an ear for consonant sonorities and a practiced sense of composition, Bowles creates a vivid and emotional musical experience.
