Current Reviews of Storm!
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
Pascal Wyse
*** Storm :: Ambrose Field
If you need to thank the RAF in the sleeve notes of a CD, you have probably gone further than most to collect your sounds. Here, metal workshops, riots, machine guns and jets taking off are heavily processed and mixed with more familiar studio sounds, to create a story that as Field admits, has "more in common with Operation Desert Storm". Even the gargantuan purring cat on Wall of Windows sounds deadly. Storm! is a riveting, futuristic action-pic for the blind - which figures, since Field has been called over to LA to give the latest Dolby cinema systems a beating with this material. What's compelling, apart from the unfathomable sheen of the audio fireworks, is the way an alien planet is built from things our ears already comprehend - possibly Field's reminder that the seeds of our destruction are all around us. And, perhaps most disturbing of all, the future still seems to have metal guitar solos.
Ars Electronica Jury Statement 2006 :: Digital Musics
Amidst the plethora of the musique concrete oriented pieces we found a vigorous, rip roaring, high octane opus entitled Storm! A few of us were familiar with its author, Ambrose Field, but once this uncompromisingly relentless “audensity” hit our ears we were curiously smitten. Here was a composer and sound designer who was putting all his cards on the table and still leaving much to our collective aural imaginations. The tension, drama and impact were intensified by enhanced guitar-like timbre streams and strong cinematic effects which draw the listener into personal moments of sonic intimacy or vaster accelerations that appear “larger than life”. Constructing a convincing surround composition from recorded environmental sound sources and customized computer metamorphosis is always a musical challenge and the uncommon results we encountered here helped to ignite fresh audio insights into a rather profound acousmatic world.
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
Pascal Wyse
*** Storm :: Ambrose Field
If you need to thank the RAF in the sleeve notes of a CD, you have probably gone further than most to collect your sounds. Here, metal workshops, riots, machine guns and jets taking off are heavily processed and mixed with more familiar studio sounds, to create a story that as Field admits, has "more in common with Operation Desert Storm". Even the gargantuan purring cat on Wall of Windows sounds deadly. Storm! is a riveting, futuristic action-pic for the blind - which figures, since Field has been called over to LA to give the latest Dolby cinema systems a beating with this material. What's compelling, apart from the unfathomable sheen of the audio fireworks, is the way an alien planet is built from things our ears already comprehend - possibly Field's reminder that the seeds of our destruction are all around us. And, perhaps most disturbing of all, the future still seems to have metal guitar solos.
Ars Electronica Jury Statement 2006 :: Digital Musics
Amidst the plethora of the musique concrete oriented pieces we found a vigorous, rip roaring, high octane opus entitled Storm! A few of us were familiar with its author, Ambrose Field, but once this uncompromisingly relentless “audensity” hit our ears we were curiously smitten. Here was a composer and sound designer who was putting all his cards on the table and still leaving much to our collective aural imaginations. The tension, drama and impact were intensified by enhanced guitar-like timbre streams and strong cinematic effects which draw the listener into personal moments of sonic intimacy or vaster accelerations that appear “larger than life”. Constructing a convincing surround composition from recorded environmental sound sources and customized computer metamorphosis is always a musical challenge and the uncommon results we encountered here helped to ignite fresh audio insights into a rather profound acousmatic world.
