The Glittering Domain

The fourth deepspace album, this work was released initially by the American label Hypnos in 2008. It is being re-released in 2016, with new artwork. Building on the sound of the first three albums, this is a more refined work, a widescreen affair that moves from light to dark, travels from outer worlds to inner spaces. The sounds are glossy and amber often punctuated by long drawn-out strings and harmonic overtones, always consonant but decorated with the distant gnaw of granular dissonance. After the mystical night-evoking opening track, The Chord of the Abyss, we spend time travelling past large heavenly bodies, towards the centrepiece of the album, Crushed by the Weight of Angels, a work that floats and shifts slowly, like heavy rain clouds lit up by the sun. Hypnotic minimal strings over a drone eventually give way to a slow motion and subtly uncomfortable piano figure that evokes the transfigured spectre of J.S. Bach. The album is then cleansed tonally by Elevenward, a secret and mysterious night-piece that ushers in the darker sounds of the rest of the album.