“Lingering Day is like a Best of Darshan Ambient so much this wide range of styles hides something that hooks the soul, that makes our skin shivers”
1 Snowflake 4:55
2 Silver 5:12 3 Arc of Angels 3:50
4 White Calm 7:48 5 Mover 4:47 6 Erroneous 3:57 7 The Seven Sleepers 4:13 8 The Lost Hunter 6:46 9 Bee's Fade 6:15 10 Hand in the Clouds 3:42 11. Kissing Crust 3:34 12 Umbra 4:11 13 The Seven Sleepers Part 2 5:12 14 Lingering Day 6:34
(CD/DDL 71:03) (V.F.) (Melodic, mid-tempos, Ambient, New Age)
Ah … The music of Darshan Ambient! Each time I receive a new album from the San Francisco musician, I wonder why I don't listen to his music much often. Soft and poetic, wild and intractable, the music of Michael Allison floats like a feather caressing the other side of our soul while taking good care to mark our ears of his unique tone with one or two, sometimes even 4 or 5, titles that are simply amazing. Titles that are like some good chicken broth for the soul. LINGERING DAY: Anatomy of a Daydream is his 9th album on Spotted Peccary. And it's a box of wonders so much that we can easily believe it's a kind of Best of… so much this album is filled of catchy titles. The pallet of styles is rather impressive with always and still beautiful ballads, as seraphic as morphic, contemplative moments filled with great soundscapes and a mixture of rock with a flavor of Electronica. One even finds here a sung title which will please undoubtedly the fans of Genesis, period Peter Gabriel although sometimes one would swear that it's Phil Collins.
It's in the spirit of Christmas that begins this adventure in 14 musical chapters. In a decoration of sound enchantment, Snowflake enjoys giving us smile with tinkling sparkles. The white noises which drum deftly in the background, and which hang onto the wavering of the sonic hoops, add a depth up to here unknown in Darshan Ambient repertoire. A nice e-ballad moistened by psybient effects. In the end, it's a good mid-tempo with a guitar, unique of its tone, throwing harmonies which wither in this adornment, but which remain engraved between our ears. Silver is my first crush! A keyboard steals my thoughts with a delicate ritornello which spins in some great orchestral arrangements. A small crescendo is settling down with the slowness of the cello which amplifies a very melancholic vibe that carillons decorate with small crystalline twinkling. The rhythm which comes is slow but strongly soaked with emotions. Layers of angelic voices add another stratum of emotionalism, tickling even the hairs of my arms which think of raising up. But this interstellar ballad becomes silent. A short moment! But just enough to drag me out again of my reverie and to give more tonus to this allegorical carousel for solitary souls. Arc of Angels is also in mode electronic ballad. A ballad a little more rock like A Trick of the Tail but sung by Peter Gabriel or... Phil Collins. If at the beginning that makes a little bit strange, we go for it so much the introduction is of silk.
White Calm reveals a very nice Erik Wollo soundscape with guitar strings which support a spectral melody in a universe of ice. And the wheel goes turning! We go back to an energetic rhythm with Mover and its percussions which hop up and down like the wild dance of ten feet in a can of beer. The serenity of the layers of voices and violins makes contrast with a structure which flirts a little with a static Electronica, contrary to Kissing Crust which even flirts with Dance Music. Erroneous is part of the beautiful e-ballads of this album, this time it's with weeping violins. A touch of Jazz infiltrates the moods, but not as much as in The Lost Hunter, a great title of Jazz with scents of Blues and a magic guitar on a slow and languishing rhythm. Splendid! More in sibylline mode, The Seven Sleepers is also an ode to serenity. Umbra, the very somber and disturbing Hand in the Clouds and Lingering Day are also moments of plenitude with a very fascinating Mephistophelian decoration in the finale of the title-track. Bee's Fade proposes a very lively beat with a tribal dance of the Middle East. The Seven Sleepers Part 2 is my 2nd strong crush here. The rhythm is slow and wins in intensity because brilliantly clubbed by agile and nervous percussions. Always dreamer, the guitar throws harmonies which float such as wandering solos.
As you can read, I was enchanted by this these range of styles which peppers the soft ambiences of LINGERING DAY: Anatomy of a Daydream. Darshan Ambient
is second to none to ennoble his New Age style in every corner of a musical universe where a pallet of styles interconnects with a strange euphoric symbiosis. The melodies are beautiful, the guitar cuts throughout our emotions and the music sticks to us with a guilty pleasure in our area of listening, as well as alone with our earphones. A solid album of beautiful music that me and my Lise have devoured from A to Z.
Sylvain Lupari (November 2nd, 2017) ****½*
SynthSequences.com Available at Spotted Peccary Bandcamp
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