RADIUM88: Only Science Can Tell Us the Truth (CD on Lotek Recordings )
This release from 2007 offers 71 minutes of beautiful electronic music.
Radium88 is Tim Thwaites on piano, melodica and orchestrations, Matt Clare on guitar, Clare Hunt on violin, Mike Clifford on cornet, and Jema Davies on vocals.
Delicate music that combines classical instruments with electronics to achieve a dreamy sound. Keyboards tingle with earthy timbre as they generate tenuous melodies. Congenial electronics bloop and drone and pitter and woosh, sliding and quivering and drifting. Moody tonalities crossbreed with brisk techy noises. Minimal structures are layered until they lose their sparse character and become lush arrangements of fragile disposition.
Instead of impressing a stodgy mien on things, violin and other orchestral touches inject the melodies with an airy disposition that is crisply modern and delightfully bewitching. Melodica strains lend a mournful edge to the tunes.
Softly delivered percussion provides a gentle impetus every once in a while.
Two tracks feature heavenly vocals whose lyrical message perpetuates the somnambulant character created by the music.
Everything conspires to produce an atmospheric pastiche that is simultaneously soothing and gripping. Air and water are united to form a complex gaseous entity of alluring attraction.
A few pieces exhibit the band's sound in livelier modes. While deliciously peppy, these tracks never abandon an overall sense of crystalline beauty. The last song associates a jovially dramatic piano with suitably powerful percussion to achieve a wondrous finale.
The compositions are fluid and tasty, charmingly blurring the dividing line between contemporary EM and modern classical music. Easygoing melodies stir the soul while stimulating cognitive functions. This music possesses a stately quality that is entirely rewarding.
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