VOICE OF EYE

The fact that each recording is taken from separate various releases only adds to my enjoyment of this recording due to the differentiation of sound.

There's a slight blip with 'Belladonna' which has an aura of sheer miserableness. It's enough to induce the listener into a comatose state of stupor . Maybe it's my age, but I just can't take sheerly miserable music any more. Happily things pick up with the very threatening and foreboding 'Zirkle' which displays that instantly recognisable 'Voice of Eye' sound with its circular hard percussion. It's very odd indeed, almost like a Crusaders call to arms. The electronics sound like the death throes of a harpooned whale.

'Musique Concrete' sounds follow with 'Bike' amongst a sea of distant female vocals. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the metallic sounds are actually parts of bicycles being struck. There's certainly a few spinning wheel sounds thrown in.

'Touch' re-invigorates the intensity of the album with what can only be described as 'Serial Killer music'. Deeply unsettling washes of vocal samples spray forth while metal percussion and all sorts of strange warblings occur all at once. One of the highlights on 'Anthology' is the very tuneful mediaeval sounding 'Fluvio Labenti' replete with 15th Century female vocals and an atmosphere that is very similar to 'Dead Can Dance's' 'Aion' recording.

Disc II kicks off with an unreleased track from '96 and at 19 minutes it's hefty in length. A few echoed cheesy flute sounds appear at the beginning before all sorts of twisted gadgetry mayhem breaks forth at the 3.30 minute mark. Every sound is so heavily manipulated by electronic effects that it's hard to get a grasp on just what on earth is happening. Unfortunately it outstays its welcome as it's a relentless slab of more 'Musique Concrete' - a never repeating sound collage of almost random noises.

A bizarre juxtaposition occurs next as a nice flute and pretty acoustic guitars frivolously play away in the style of Krautrockers 'Emtidi' and 'Bröselmaschine'. Lastly and triumphantly the highlight of this double disc rears its 44 minute long head. Despite being a Dress Rehearsal for a live show it has an immensity and depth of sound that eclipses all that has gone before. Like most 'Voice of Eye' classics - it's the lengthier ones that are the most successful. 'Sonic Works' can be taken as an isolationist masterpiece, or a slab of melancholic gloom with an atmosphere heavier than a Nuclear Winter. Once again certain elements are very similar to 'Steve Roach', but there's an underlying current of threat and malevolence that belongs solely to 'Voice of Eye'. I could listen to this stuff all day. It's perfect mountain top music as you look smugly down at tiny little human civilisations as if they were ants. After an airily grim 17 minutes the real deal begins with some the most beautiful vocal treatments you're likely to hear. This is followed by swathes of elongated chords and drones which add a sense of majesty and impending doom. For such a quiet track it really carries one hell of a punch. Great big horns, which may be some mutant form of clarinet, blasts out Tibetan Monastery style wails of displeasure. Creaks, groans and ghostlike vocals see us through to the end of this enormously long recording.

It's nearly a masterpiece folks, but is let down just once or twice throughout it's duration - only momentarily - by some cheesy flute sounds and just one track 'Belladonna'. Other than that, it's a superb recording and well worthy of investigation by the more adventurous.

Voice of Eye have an instantly recognisable sound - which is some feat considering the wealth of similarly classed bands who more often than not sound non-descript.

''Breathing' continues the vibe nicely with very bizarre instrumentation that reminds me of 'The Empirical Sleeping Consort'. What resembles wailing cats and dogs are compressed through various filters creating an alien and unworldly atmosphere.

'Blooming' delves into ritual percussion 'Steve Roach' style, only this sounds more intense and less laid back mainly due to what might be horns being blown.

Like all of these tunes they meld into one another creating what could really be just one very long track. 'Waning' delivers that classic Voice of Eye sound with its ominous dread, where strangely stretched out horns and strings create a really dark atmosphere, but is enlivened by hand held percussion instruments.

'Melting' displays some seriously weird distorted percussion and drones, the origins of which I'm at a loss to even guess. There's some elongated human vocals in there somewhere, but this sounds like it was recorded on a planet that orbits Sirius.

'Drifting' utilises extreme phasing on female vocals which pitter-patter amongst droning elecronics and acoustic perky percussion.

The best is left for last - the whopping 19 minute 'Dreaming'. There's so much space between each sound on this recording. Voice of Eye hold the tools and know not to overload every instance with unnecessary intrusions. This is a cold, shivering, floating piece of music which flutters about like ghosts in a Victorian mansion. It' s got that odd 30 second dropout of sound that 90's bands seemed to favour when you think it's finished, only for multiple looped female vocals re-appear in a 'Rapoon' manner which brings this excellent album to a close.

With 'Vespers' you get the usual superb production values you'd expect from this band. Next to 'Transmigration' it's probably their best album. They were at their creative peak around this time (1994-96), recording albums that sound timeless 21 years later.

Voice of Eye are the collaboration of Jim Wilson and Bonnie McNairn, who formed in Houston in the late 1980s and are now based in Taos, New Mexico. They produce unbelievably high quality "tribal ambient" sound recordings which use no synthesizer, rather, a vast array of acoustic instruments and even several home made instruments. They are played, sampled, and layered together, sometimes to ritual style percussion. With great instinct for presentation they somehow making the formless, unconventional, and the avant garde into music that is as pleasing as it is spiritually fulfilling.

The 60-plus minutes "Vespers" (meaning evening song) is a musically journey in the most literal sense of the phrase. I don't know how to describe it other than to say this is one of those albums where you need to be alone, with nothing on your schedule so you can pull all the shades and assume a horizontal position. To do this right you will need no distractions for an hour. Headphones could potentially elevate this experience to an even higher plane. The album is essentially one long track despite the "song names" presented on the CD, such as Walking, Breathing, Drifting, etc. Ominous soundscapes are the back drop with welling and softening bursts of usually indefinable sound, rarely do you know what instrument you are actually hearing. It comes and goes in random fashion, sometimes totally open space, other times a ritual feel with percussion, always some kind of unspoken meditation. Sometimes the sounds are just weirdness, random, vague, other times they can be quiet and introspective.

There are no vocals but there are occasional sections of wordless human voice, often somewhat effected and haunting. If I can point to anything to provide some frame of reference, I might say that it reminds me a bit of Phillip Glass' "Koyannisqatsi" or Oldfield's "Amarok", but only in spirit, not at all in actual sound. It may remind others of the trippiest late 60s hallucinogenic music but be comforted that the sound clarity is very good. You will hear everything that is happening. I don't want to be overly dramatic but this is music that feels as if it binds humanity together in some way, far below the surface. Listening to this kind of pure sound in an undisturbed state feels like perhaps you are getting a brief glimpse beyond the veil. Stunning, mysterious, and beautiful it is.

While I don't always enjoy albums that are this far "off the grid" I do enjoy "Vespers", quite a lot. Unlike some unstructured, non-melodic music, "Vespers" is organic human expression that is pleasing and palatable for nearly anyone, even those who don't usually venture into such realms. Some music fans will surely find such an album "boring" because there is nothing resembling rock and roll here. But others will be VoE fans after one listening. It feels like a shamanistic ritual deep in some outdoor environment, something the photos and artwork would support.

The opener has the pretentious title 'Gates Of Mysterious Fire'. Thankfully it's a lot more tasteful than it sounds. A bass guitar playing a tune in a 'Voice of Eye' track is startling enough, but guitars too? This wasn't at all what I was expecting. There's many soft feedback effects in the background which adds a nice all enveloping ambience. After 20 odd years we finally get to hear Bonnie McNairn sing properly, and doesn't she have a nice set of vocal chords guys? I mean, crikey, she's actually singing tunes, would you believe it?

'Where Are You?' has a very 'This Mortal Coil' vibe going on and to my ears quite a bit of 'Biota' in the extreme effects used on instruments and vocals.

Another 'Gong' like tune follows with a funky bass and spacey guitar thing going on in that 'Cosmic' mid 70's style before we get to the meat of the album 'Om Shanti' where hugely stretched out violins and vocals are mixed with sparse tribal drums, This is much more middle Eastern orientated than I've heard from them before.

A lot of their all consuming darkness and impending doom has evaporated leaving tunnels of light that remain tantalisingly beyond reach. On 'Remember' main guy Jim Wilson decides to sing a tune too. Joy of joys! I'm still rubbing my ears in disbelief. Not only that - but he can hold his notes just fine! Bonnie McNairn has ethereal twitterings going on in the background amongst heavily treated high pitched guitars. All the while I'm reminded of 90's band 'Air'.

'Transformation Birth' is classic Voice of Eye material. At 18 mins it's the central track. Murky, swirling electronics played gently, slowly transmogrifying into something unworldly and totally alien. Without one single percussive beat it holds my attention far more than anything that's gone before. Something nasty sounds as though its working its way up from the bottom of a swamp. Slowly but surely, looking for a human face to grab hold of.

Thankfully the remainder plays out in this fashion. A real creepfest which would be enough to give your kids nightmares if you played it through the crack in their bedroom door in the middle of the night. A borderline 4 stars reduced to 3 simply because the first half ain't scary enough. The second half though... It'll scare the bejeesus out of you.

'Voice of Eye' are one of those difficult bands to describe. They create an atmosphere of impending doom right from the outset and continue throughout with their unusual blend of voodoo percussion and unearthly 'anti-christ' vocals.

They don't use synths and everything sounds organic but filtered through effects units until they are completely unidentifiable. Swirling and throbbing sound generators spin and twirl threateningly amongst effected vocals which are highly distorted and are mixed in with a lot of acoustic percussion. The good news is that there's some semblance of tune on each track, whereas, with a lot of this genre (Dark Industrial, Drone) there's nothing but a lot of forced emotional intentions which usually end up sounding uninspired in the extreme.

Unbelievably for a sound like theirs, they're from Texas and live in one of those non energy greenhouse igloo things where no electricity is delivered. Pah! This doesn't take away from the difficulty of writing a review for 'Mariner Sonique'. I can't recommend this to prog fans at all. Invariably they will be disappointed - for a start there ain't a guitar in sight.

Twanging electric machines and wobbly acoustics utilising sexy whispering female vocals followed by dismally downbeat male inhuman gargoyle groanings are rife throughout. Every other 'Voice of Eye' album that follows is far less heavy on the percussion front and are more vocal in approach. This is the odd one out, but is no worse off for it.

'Transmigration' is a very moody and brooding recording where at times sounds like the creepier parts of '2001 Space Odyssey''.

No synthesisers, samplers or sequencers are used throughout 'Transmigration' which is hard to believe when you hear what's going on. The sounds are almost impossible to describe- there's no bass or guitar used. It's ominous, dark and oppressive, this is the type of album you really should listen to late at night, particularly on Halloween if you want to get annoying kids away from your door.

I bought this in '95 when it was first released and still play it every 4 months or so due to it's realistic dirty, darkness. There's a whole lot going on during it's lengthy duration - where undescribable instruments are stretched and pulled to such an extent that they're no longer recognised. They morph into a malevolent maelstrom of evil sounding chords - only to get washed away occasionally into fragmented female vocals which are so effected you couldn't even tell they were human.

A very unusual and highly original album from a practically unknown band. It should appeal to fans of the dark side of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. I have no reservation in giving a 5 star reward.