Into the zone. The realm of science fiction, and of ambient music, is
mapped by paths to new beginnings, changed viewpoints. Typical motifs in the
fantasy genres center around a protagonist, or group of them, passing through
a gauntlet of experiences to arrive home with a new vision, or to arrive at a
new home entirely.
One early model for this vision quest, or walkabout, myth is Homer's
ODYSSEY, an epic poem of the proverbial voyage home. Stanley Kubrick based his
classic film, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, on this theme, forcing his Future
Everyman, Dave Bowman, to make a hallucinogenic as well as physical trip,
return to Earth as a radically altered being, a "Star Child." Posters for the
film heralded 2001 as "the ultimate trip." The film set the stage for other
films in which characters traded in their visions, even their personalities,
for newborn mindsets. George Lucas' classic THX 1138 and Ridley Scott's BLADE
RUNNER both feature heroes who go through hell to emerge in a dangerous new
world, stripped of the shackles of the past. THX literally makes a passage
through the "outer shell" in a stolen car, climbing into a sunlit world of the
unknown. BLADE RUNNER's Deckard (previously a replicant-killer) goes on the
run with his replicant lover, starting a new life as an outlaw.
In Andrei Tarkovsky's STALKER (Mosfilm, 1979), an
alien artifact (meteor? spacecraft?) crashes to Earth and renders a widespread
area apparently inhospitable; the authorities declare the surrounding region
off-limits to visitors. Rumors about the object abound. At the center of "The
Zone," a place of mystery and portent, a myth is born: those who dare travel
to the object will have their wishes granted. The journey, though, strips the
individual bare, and one may arrive with entirely different goals. A group of
seekers hire one of the guides (a Stalker) to lead them into The Zone, and the
film documents the inner trials that each character suffers.
Like the films I've mentioned, STALKER (the album) is an ambient work of
traveling through distress, to reach a moment of paradigm exchange, and
discovery. The CD begins with an unearthly, almost metallic howl, and terrible
thud, as if a door thrown open upon a dark chasm of the mind. The titles of
each segment suggest a trip that will be taken through the listener's
imagination: "Delusion Fields," "Synergistic Perceptions." Robert Rich's audio
environments have always been alive with some sort of life, strange organisms,
mythical presences, birds, crickets, or dreadful, subterranean "glurps"; here,
the soundscape is fraught with spirits, human and otherwise, and echoes of
past travellers taunt from the shadows,... and inner voices. B.Lustmord's
(Brian William's) work in film and ambient music is based on dark stuff; he's
a low-end fanatic. STALKER features gobs of low thumps and drones, like clouds
are reaching to the ground and patting the dirt.
The album moves thematically, from the atmospheric to the metallic, from
airy to claustrophobic ... arriving finally at The Raining Room (which was
portrayed in a segment from Rich's earlier Hearts of Space release,
RAINFOREST). At the center of The Zone, the album becomes enlightening, and
sound is freed from any urgency of transit. The "Point of No Return" is a
place of reckoning, not with the mystery of The Zone, but with one's own
fascination with it, and one's self.
Along the way, Rich and B. Lustmord have dropped homages that can only have
deeply personal resonance. This is an "audio film," a portrait that blasts out
from your stereo and takes over the room. The texture of the music is bizarre:
it's crisp and alive, yet so many of the acoustic entities are indistinct,
puzzling. Like a dream, the soundscape is murky. Each time I listen to
STALKER, I hear new sounds, and have different reactions. My interpretation of
this work is a dynamic, evolving exploration. Like a Stalker entering The
Zone, I've waded into this CD with a portable player and ten watt speakers, or
a large hi-fi with Bose 401 speakers, or digital-ready headphones plugged
right into the player. Each time I visit The Zone with STALKER, the experience
reveals more of this musical puzzle. Of all the ambient albums I listen to,
STALKER stands in a class of works that exists out of time, out of place, and
(ultimately) relevant only unto itself. Like the best of ambient works, it
will become your world.
From KOROVA
MULTIMEDIA
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