I’ll start with the only bad point, but it’s a big one: the thing that bothers me about this album is that I don’t have a clue what to say about it. Well, I do, but whether it makes any sense, I really don’t know. Why? Because what Hollydrift have produced can not be rated by normal musical standards. You might even say that it is not entirely clear whether if it is music at all. But then again, I am not in a position to say what is music and what is not.

Is this a bad thing? Not for this album, not at all. I genuinely like it. That does not mean that I can put my finger on it, however. Any rating might easily be completely misguided, so I refuse to rate it at all. This time, they’ve won.

Soundscape is what this sort of thing is called. You can take that quite literally, then you might get an idea what it sounds like. It is not, I repeat NOT just noise though. This is composing with sound. And not like guitars, synths and stuff, more the opposite. Like industrial noises, machinery, speech, old recordings, there is even a sample of the 1958 Vanguard satellite on it, that kind of stuff.

Anything. So in a way it is the utmost limit to what composers (let’s call them that) can do creatively, making music out of non-musical sounds, but at the same time that is exactly the thing that makes it so difficult to judge. There is virtually nothing to hold on to as a listener.

But maybe that is the whole idea; to be open minded to new inventions. And to be amazed that the final result is still something that can be described as musical. Am I reasoning in circles? Maybe. But I’m still trying to find the right words for you to understand what I want to say.

As you might have guessed, I am not too familiar to this genre. But I’m surely willing to try some more of this stuff. It’s that intriguing. I am very sorry that I have no better compliment. Or do I? I bought a CD with Tibetan Temple Bell sounds today. Never done that before...