A longtime member of the Irish ambient scene, Gareth Quinn Redmond's latest is a minimalist expedition into the power of single electronic lines. He does provide enough accompaniment to provide modest settings for his pieces, but the simple lines are the stars here.

Gareth Quinn Redmond Múscailte (Sound As Language)

Redmond doesn't settle for the easily hypnotic. Yes, the lines tend to be repeated in raga or drone-line fashion, but their placement shifts subtly within the songs. Those slight hiccups feel like milemarkers along a trail.

Very much like the American artist bios+a+ic, Redmond crafts his pieces to rise and fall slowly without any appreciable climax. That is probably what keeps these pieces in the ambient, as some aficionados might find them a bit too busy otherwise. Redmond keeps his focus on the whole and not any spot in particular, and each repetition of the line adds another brush stroke.

Redmond's works are not great works of beauty, but they do suck the listener into a world that is not quite this one. Start down this path, and it might wend much father than it seems.

Jon Worley