BLOODMOON RISING - NIGHT 3

The third of a proposed four album cycle to commemorate the occasion of four consecutive blood moon lunar eclipses, `Bloodmoon Rising - Night 3' sees ambient/progressive electronic veteran Steve Roach deliver another challenging and slowly unfolding formless sound collage. Described by the artist himself as a `sound immersion experience', it's one single seventy three minute droning, deeply hypnotic composition that seamlessly moves from dark to light, completely devoid of anything resembling melodies or percussive elements.

Monolithic slab-like immovable walls of electronic sound dominate the pitch black groaning night, taking what feels like an eternity for light and life to gradually reveal itself. Pinpricks of sunlight sliver through the dark offering signs of hope and life, and slowly emerging trickles of wonder carefully cast out reassuring, loving fingertips of warmth and protection. Drowsy, dream-like and hallucinogenic drones force you to close your eyes and feel like time no longer holds any meaning, as ethereal psychedelic washes unfold like ripples breaking and shimmering across the surface of a lake.

This release is available as a free download from Mr Roach's Bandcamp page, but a limited edition proper four CD set is due at the same time of the final volume in September of 2015. Once complete, it promises to be a very unique, challenging and evocative body of work from the artist that will appeal most to lovers to long, lengthy droning atmospheres. Newcomers to the electronic and ambient genres, and those who prefer more melodic offerings in those styles, should approach this release with great caution. Although it eventually reveals great beauty and an uneasy warmth, there are long stretches that almost seem uneventful or devoid of movement and progression. But `Night 3' is still a darkly dramatic, mysterious and impossibly subtle work from a master of low-key, intelligent and thoughtful ambient and progressive electronic music.

Three stars for patient listeners.