Elve - Emerald

[abasio]

 

Artist: Elve

Title: Emerald

Label: Virtual

Released: 30 July 2010

Style: Ambient

 

Tracklist

 

1 Epena Ceremony (4:13)

2 Plant Cell Perceptions (9:02)

3 Tree Memories (9:08)

4 Pollen Forms (2:10)

5 Delphinium Dream (4:31)

6 Green Lake (2:05)

7 Waterfalls (3:23)

8 Emerald Forest (2:41)

9 Mesmeric Sun Kingdom (11:59)

10 Plateua (8:52)

11 Eden (6:32)

 

How to describe this album without repeating everything I said about the first Elve release Infinite Garden? They are strikingly similar albums on casual listens. They are bright and sunny with long drawn out electronic sounds merging harmoniously with the sounds of nature: birdsong, rivers trickling, wind rustling leaves etc. They are both minimal yet packed full of detail. On first listen of each you could be forgiven for thinking that they are the same album. It is only in the details that the differences can be seen and once they are seen I felt like kicking myself for thinking they were so similar.

 

You see, while the storyteller is the same and has a very unique way of telling stories that makes you instantly recognise that it is him, while both albums may be set in the same place in the same era, the story is completely different. A journey can be made by the same people using the same modes of transport but the experience turns out completely different. Whereas Infinite Garden was a romp around a stately garden with no other human sould to trouble you, Emerald is a step beyond the borders of neatly kept gardens of the Infinite Garden, beyond the tamed landscapes and cared for aviaries. Emerald is a step into a more wild landscape, where the rivers run free, the grass is overgrown and animals may be hungry.

 

Each track is beautiful, describing wonderful landscapes like a paradise but like with places that seem like paradise from the outside, once you get on the inside them and you can see the exquisite detail, it is at once fascinating and disturbing. The music takes me through lush forest with a canopy hundreds of feet up that the sunlight just makes it through. It takes me rivers too wide to cross, waterfalls too high to climb and to clearings that are uneasy in the absence of trees. This land is truly a kingdom beyond man's influence and it is a priveledge to be able to wander it's landscapes using Elve's soundscapes.

 

So if you have listened to this and thought it was just like Infinite Garden then listen again, try and see beyond the storyteller and listen to the story being told. I prefer this to Infinite Garden; I like the raw openess of Emerald, I like the wildness and the darker side of paradise.