3.5

Release data:

Various Artists – Albedo
CD, Ultimae Records, 2005

“Albedo” is another beautifully packaged concept-cd of the French Ultimae-label featuring “11 ambient refractions and kaleidoscopic grooves” by the same number of bands.

he cd starts of with a quiet, meandering track by Carbon Based Lifeforms, before things move into the “Wishful Thinking”, a track by Between Interval with lots of rather annoying distorted radio signals at the beginning before moving into soft flowing waves of electronica.

Solar Fields offers the nice down-tempo “Fiat Lux” with lots of deep bass groovy elements. Ishq comes with the “Ra” featuring sophisticated down-tempo groove-samples.
The Ochi Brothers didn’t quite grab my attention with their tribal-percussion ambient, but things turn better with the contributions of Nova (also the compiler of the disc) & Aes Dana and Sync24 which move through relaxed down-tempo territory.

Hol Baumann’s track offers lots of clicks and fx’s and ain’t that down-tempo at all with its heavy sound. Gladly enough “Aes Dana” turns things into an attractive direction again with the groovy “Aftermath #8”, after which Vir Unis brings the highlight of the album: “Light Curve” is a complex mixture of sampled high-tech percussion, groove-textures and fx’s. The closure of the album is the quiet “Sunset” by Antonio Testa.

In all, another very nice release from this amazing French label.

You can see what reviews I have done of this artist on the Various Artists page