Jimmy Behan - The Echo Garden [Album]

Audiobulb

September 21, 2009, 02:32 PM

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Ever listened to an album that takes your mind off into another place? If you haven't then your best bet is to get a copy of this ten track psychological power-piece. In all honesty I haven't heard anything quite like it. Most people listen to a diverse range of genres on today's musical circuit but a whole chunk of the music scene is just ignored (intentionally or not) and unexplored. It's kind of like dipping your head under the water in the middle of the ocean and delving deep down into the depths, you don't know what you will find and you're not sure how to react to it.

"The Echo Garden" has been played in my record player(s) for probably the duration of a full weeks worth of hours (terrible at maths so will leave the calculation up to you). It was just begging for more time, more listens and more concentration. The only way to describe the genre is Musique concrète. The composition is just truly baffling, with no rhythm sections or any kind of structure. It is just a case of whacking it on, closing your eyes and letting the sound waves take you away. Behan himself describes his music as "an exploration of textures" to which you can definitely agree. Another point of view could be that "The Echo Garden" is just a bunch of noises plunged together with some media masking tape and a bit of reverb.

Each track has a new way of waking your ears up to something new and exciting. The samples, the recordings, the layers all leave you in complete awe as to how complicated and/or simple the delivery is. At moments you could say Sigur Ros has had an input, minus the vocals and song structure of course. Jimmy Behan ensures that this is intelligent electronic music that cant be recreated on any new level. Even more scary is that this is one guy. There is like I said a whole world out there of this style of electronic composition.

Whatever you make of the output of Jimmy Behan's work, there is indisputable evidence that the intricacies he uses in his layers of sound are stunning. At moments you could picture "The Echo Garden" being the soundtrack to the Oscar winning film 'American Beauty.' It's so emotional, intriguing and tantalizing.

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