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Nocturnal Emissions, "Nightscapes"
With this long player, Nigel Ayers has produced the musical equivalent of a sexual fever. Unbidden, while listening I became aroused by its somnambulatory exhortations and caressed by rhythmic undulations that continuosly excite.The three long pieces that compose the first side are perfectly tinged tones, vibrating in the same hypnagogic blue color as the record cover. These tones hover and sway in an ionosphere swollen from lunar tides, while metallic chirps reverberate in the background. The sounds build up with an equipoised pressure as their drifting sonorities dance in stereo fields of microscopic static. Lost accordions transmigrate from a brighter astral plane and it begins to feel as if I am encased by a ringing halo of light... And time stands still.
When I flip the record over to its backside, what I have heard before I hear again, but in a different and recycled fashion. Nothing is wasted; the first few minutes sound ominous but soon morph into a transcendent joy, a stirring dirge recalling the vitality of the human spirit. The chirps echo in again, electronic crickets of possibly alien origin sound off and as I travel through the four songs of this second half of the album, Mr. Ayers moves me back into my physical body with free flowing guitar loops and buzzing inarticulate voices straining to communicate in a nonlinear language. Proceeding through a track of clinks and clanks I find myself billowed for a moment in the warmth of a feathered bed. Chiming sounds arrive again, swelling with a warm dissonance. These nightscapes spin me into action even as the detritus of dreams swarm around me. Listening to this album I feel as if my brain is cradled in the capable hands of an esoteric neurosurgeon, proving once again that Nocturnal Emissions will bring me to the edge of a spiritual climax and hold me there steadily. As if in by a primal tantra, meditating on his electric plainsong, I am coaxed back into a promised land of earthly delights.
Long after the album is over memories of beautiful sound swirl in the afterglow.
This LP was released in a limited edition of 555 numbered copies.
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