Connect.Ohm – 9980

English / Polish version

Connect.Ohm - 9980
    ULTIMAE RECORDS
    Connect.Ohm
    9980
    2012

      1. Evolution 1:1
      2. Snow Park
      3. 9980
      4. Mol
      5. Fossil
      6. Take Off (Album Edit)
      7. Gentle Perception
      8. Time To Time By Time
      9. Winter Sorrows

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This year Santa Claus has come to visit me unexpectedly quickly… Probably like most people I do not like Mondays and even more Mondays during which it is snowing. The snow that appeared after a month of calendar autumn, shortly after some pleasant, sunny days of October, unfortunately has not tuned me positively. While sitting at work and watching the white show behind the window, I had no idea that there is an incredibly nice gift waiting for me in my letter box – the freshest, still warm (because released exactly on 17th of October 2012) album straight from Ultimae Records!!! The funniest thing is that few days ago I was talking with my friends about a collaboration of Cell and Hybrid Leisureland and we were wondering, what interesting this duo will bring.

Let us get to the point… When I was holding the album of Connect.Ohm with a title 9980, which did not say anything and actually I felt a little bit nervous because of it, for it is my drawback that I like to analyze the titles and according to them I like to imagine, what the album will bring… In this case I could not satisfy my curiosity at once, I had to wait patiently for the end of the album just to check its meaning. Alex Scheffer (Cell) is a person who is very well known to me, because I fell in love with his music at the time when the album PHONIC PEACE was released and I had the opportunity to listen to his live acts, after which I have never felt disappointed. I really like to go a few years back and dig out some albums, thanks which I have learned about the psychill, downtempo, ambient music, etc. or whatever anyone will classify it (eventually those are only names). Actually thanks to these flashbacks I have remembered even the album of Cell which is called LIVE AT KUMHARAS from the year 2007, to which I have listened passionately and constantly for a while and HANGING MASSES from the year 2009. My musical experiences with Hidetoshi Koizumi (Hybrid Leisureland) were limited to SCROLL SLIDE released by Ultimae in the year 2010. At one extreme I have to deal with well-known to me, mostly downtempo, French artist, and at the other – with Japanese, who serves some ambient tones and sounds. I have expected a mixture in which each genre will play its own role, one of them will be a complement of the second one and their proportions will be spread 50/50, but in the reality it turned out that (in my opinion ) 9980 is ambient material. As I have got used to, with ambient it goes differently – sometimes I have an impression that the artists have a problem with finding the right balance, the best sound solutions and leading the melodic line in this kind of way just not to bore the listener. Fortunately, the project Connect.Ohm rose to the challenge and offered me a portion of very light and atmospheric tracks. The sounds are incredibly pure, you cannot detect even a single note which could interfere the general soft atmosphere of the album. While listening to the tracks of 9980, I was thinking about the dandelions on the meadow, the clouds quietly flowing through the sky, a pleasant wind weaving the hair and angel wings fluttering just behind the head.

After connecting two seemingly different music worlds, there has been created one coherent album which is characterized by a remarkable depth and thought-out structure. I admit frankly that rarely I can find really good ambient materials, but this time I am pleasantly surprised. I can recommend with my full responsibility the travel with Connect.Ohm, beginning from EVOLUTION 1:1, through SNOW PARK, 9980, MOL, FOSSIL, TAKE OFF, GENTLE PERCEPTION, TIME TO TIME BY TIME, and ending with WINTER SORROWS.

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7.5 / 10
Kasia