Reviewed by Paul S Ganney

This CD is an instrumental re-imagining of the Scottish singer/songwriter's 2015 album 'The Great Divide'. Howie took the individual audio stems and in his words "mangled, re-sampled, distorted and warped them." It therefore "bears no sonic resemblance to its source material." It's very ambient, full of long held notes over a lot (and I mean a LOT) of reverb and is one of those things that you either love or hate. It's certainly not foreground music, that's for sure. I had a lot of difficulty telling where one track ended and another one started, but I guess that's a good thing in ambient. Musically it reminded me more of film soundtracks where something eerie is happening in a cave - just before the protagonists discover whatever it was they were in there looking for. "Beacon" stood out, probably because it had a pulsating beat to it. Likewise, "Tremble" had a nice guitar figure that ran throughout. Overall it was OK, but not a CD I'll be rushing to play again, unless I do get stuck in a cave, of course.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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