This ceremony starts with serene sine waves. The sound of ringing singing bowls. A muted trombone serenading the near silence. The dynamic duo of Takashi Kokubo and Andrea Esperti together describing a deep, shimmering soundscape of organic oscillations. A high-pitched trilling, like alien wildlife. A bubbling effervescence. Manufacturing a mediative new age oasis, that ever so slowly morphs from modern classical minimalism into a sort of mutant jazz. Fizzing with flashes of Tesla coil electricity, that in places gives the music a classic Orb-like quality. 

Gamelan gongs are struck, and their metallic cries treated. The air filled with relaxing resonance. A reassuring warmth. Their distant, dissolving chimes layered and looped with filtered field recordings. Phase effects generating purring pulses. Esperti`s horn whipped by whistling winds. Cymbal sustain. Summoning the terrain of Jon Hassell’s Fourth World. Or the image of an Electric Miles lost in space. The ethereal emissions of a haunting human voice acting as a guiding siren. 

Sonic sources are stretched into strings and fanfares. Symphonic. Stately. Bathed in brass and birdsong. Providing a soft aural bed for peaceful, plaintive piano. A woodwind weaves its way above a low didgeridoo-like buzz – which may actually be made from the honking of ducks, geese, waterfowl. Their identity more obvious when surrounded by the song of a sampled stream. The rush of a fast flowing river. 

The proceedings gradually get more and more way out, until the closing track, The Lights Of Alpha Centauri, plots a course for a universe parallel to Tangerine Dream’s kosmische masterpiece, Zeit, and heads straight into a cosmic void. An abstract atmosphere of improvised noise. Busy with chatter of stars and their satellites. A bucolic black hole. A gentle galaxy of emptiness. 

Takashi Kokubo & Andrea Esperti’s collaborative ambient epic, Music For A Cosmic Garden, is out now on WRWTFWW Records. A big Thank You! to Ken Hidaka for the heads-up.