water message
While I'm usually a fan of new evolutions in music, I've been struggling with the direction ambient has taken these last couple of years. I'm still a big fan of classic ambient, dark ambient and moody soundscapes, but the whole processed sounds thing is not really my cup of tea. Luckily Entity has little of that, and Water Message became a very solid and lovely old-style ambient release (with a little twist)
Scene is the creative child of Fabrizio Greco, a sound engineer and composer who's usually involved in multimedia projects and psytrance. Under his Scene monicker, he dabbles into the ambient pool. Maybe not surprisingly, he brought some of that psytrance idealism with him and experimented with adding theta wave frequencies to his ambient songs. In short, the theta state of the brain is mostly known as the state between wake and sleep. Sounds perfect for ambient music.
To be honest though, it's pretty difficult to tell if it has any real effect on the listener. In any case, it's something that works on a more subconscious level so whether it actually improves the music is just anyone's guess (unless you could produce the same songs without or with different wave frequencies). But much akin to the Irrëversible soundtrack (which was tailored to make people feel uneasy - and with success) I assume it does add at least something to the experience.
The EP itself is quite short and holds three tracks. The first one is a nice introduction with soft waves, faraway melodies and idyllic settings. Some darker elements make sure it's not all easy-listening, but overall it's a pretty chill track.
The second track is a little longer and is the first one to start experimenting with the theta waves. It's a lot slower, darker and moodier than the first one, sporting tiny glitches and subdued soundscapes across a blanket of warm, embracing drones. A track that will no doubt help you put to sleep in no time. Pretty effective and highly atmospheric ambient.
The third and last track on the EP is the longest (although a pretty normal length in ambient world) and starts of with a stark vibration. It slowly builds up until around halfway through, where dark drones and soft soundscapes are added. The track receives a nice rain forest atmosphere and remains lingering and heavy on the mind.
If you like classic ambient, soft soundscapes and dark but warm drones, this EP is as solid as they come. Lovely music, warm, slow and a real immersive listening experience. How much of that is due to the theta wave experiment remains unclear, and is actually of little importance to us listeners. All that matters is the quality of the music, with is top notch.
The full EP can be downloaded for free on the Entity site.