Ambient sounds and immersive soundscapery here from American composer & remarkable synth polymath Ellen Reid who hails from Oak Ridge, Tennessee and who studied at the University of Southern California and California Institute of the Arts.
A Pulitzer Prize winner notable works of Reid's include the opera p r i s m.
Big Majestic guests include Shabaka Hutchings using shakuhachi counterpoint.
Reid is influenced by Brian Eno and clearly fans of the ambient auteur will get a good deal out of this evocation of city spaces such as New York’s Central Park, Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, London’s Regent’s Park & Primrose Hill and Tokyo’s Ueno Park.
Kronos Quartet tracks work a treat
Featured on 'Strawberry Hill Ascent' and 'West Coast Sky Forever' are the venerable and reliably effective Kronos Quartet. Other featured artists are Lisel, Nadia Sirota, Gabriel Cabezas, James McVinnie (once an organist at Westminster Abbey) and Riley Mulherkar.
Public art - part of Soundwalk
Trumpeter Mulherkar is on the mash-up of 'Mt Lee' and 'Step Light Now' and this portion of the album is a definite highlight. Mulherkar has performed with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and co-founded the brass quartet The Westerlies.
Broad appeal
Overall resolutely genre-less you could be into any or all of areas like classical, jazz or any number of other adjacent disciplines spanning any number of the arts and get this. It certainly has a visual appeal too in essence. The grandness of McVinnie's pipe organ contributions on 'Blue Sky Day | Mirrored Glass' is just one surprise on an album chock full of special moments. Ellen Reid photo, Erin Baiano
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