LIFE - UNFOLDING

Yves Potin is an intelligent and thoughtful French artist who records under the alias Jazzcomputer.org and releases ambient/electronic music that should easily appeal to lovers of those styles. His fifth album, 2009's `Life - Unfolding', is a hypnotic and blissful instrumental trip through a mix of progressive music, New-Age soundscapes, gentle jazzy diversions and ambient atmospheres played on a mix of keyboards and guitars, with light world music elements and even ethnic instrumentation. Yves' albums are always subtle yet never bland, full of warmth and variety, displaying supreme taste and evidence of a gentle soul.

A rumbling drone and crystalline twinkling slivers ripple throughout psychedelic opener `Seeds in Darkness', disorientating electronics almost taking on a malevolent glee! Although gently somber to begin, `Concealing Brightness' has hope constantly reaching to break through. Chiming electric guitars and a pattering of soft hand percussion dance around rising and falling placid synth washes, and electronic piano tip-toes offer the lightest of jazz/fusion flavours, almost in the manner of the spiritual early Santana band albums. Glistening electronic tendrils and sighing synth caresses full of love flit through `Air and Water Laps', dancing alongside skittering percussion loops that soon bring a sense of urgency, as primal electric guitar wails with a tone similar to the early Delirium-era Porcupine Tree albums howl from the distance.

An abstract dream-like atmosphere permeates `Lost Shore', with shifting confused drones, clockwork-like chimes, and weeping fragile guitar notes that ring out over a constant eerie ebbing pulse, synths exhaling like a relieved sigh. Crystalline shards cut through `Drawing Forth' before it gently and unexpectedly starts to groove with improvised light King Crimson- like jazzy guitar licks. `Unfolded' ensures all self-doubt, fear and loneliness is pushed aside by serene and hopeful washes of ethereal synths and dripping electric piano raindrops. This hypnotic low-key album closer is one of the most restrained and beautiful pieces ever composed by Yves.

`Life - Unfolding' couldn't be a more appropriate title for this album, as much of the music slowly unwinds with long ethereal stretches, and it's one of Yves' more satisfying and substantial releases due to a stronger element of slightly darker, droning, more mysterious qualities, giving it a depth that is sometimes absent from his work. It's also quite comparable to ambient artists like Steve Roach, although Yves does have a recognizable sound all his own. A mix of cosmic and earthy atmospheres, why not find an unhurried time and place to listen quietly and enjoy this immersive evocative music?

Four stars.