Creating from a place of equal parts contemplation, heart, and definitive skill, composer and producer Niclas Tamas completes his highly-evocative and immersive album The Lullabies for explorers of the permanent extension of life beyond Earth – an unparalleled audio journey for listeners far and wide.
Devotedly emotive and cinematic in both detail and its masterful employment of space – quiet to contrast movement – the album begins with Pythagorean Wilderness, and introduces breath-like waves of both softness and intensity.
It’s an instantly compelling listen, unique for its audio choices and indeed the unpredictable yet enthralling nature of its progression from start to finish.
Things continue in this manner, but even with the impressive ability and presence of the opener, still we notice a vast level of versatility from one piece to the next.
Consider the sudden weight and fullness of a boldly atmospheric Zero Gravity Creativity, rising up from intrigue through freedom to an ultimate sense of the great unknown. Everything from the sounds crafted to the general evolution of the work leans towards this uncertainty and mystique.
We then move into a more binaural beats kind of electronic realm, for the again spacious and intermittently industrial Geomorphology Bots. At which point it’s essential to note that this album, these lullabies for explorers, are categorically best-experienced in a setting that cancels out the noise of the remaining world. High-quality headphones or speakers allow the true depth of each composition to really connect and build upon the existing architecture of an idea or feeling pristinely encapsulated.
Welcoming a dash of oriental melody and tone is Nanotechnology Society, again provoking thoughts that meander far from the expected. Niclas masterfully employs an entire universe of sound and possibility, to gift audiences a fiercely cinematic listen; one that lingers in the heart and mind indefinitely once the music ends.
Switching gears once more is the darkness and distorted electrical impulses of Quantum Mechanics Sociobiology. Later the sudden melodic, organic and neo-classical tremble of Interstellar Surveillance quickly redirects us once more; another page in another chapter of another aspect of exploration.
Retro sci-fi flavors and growing vehemence return for an unmistakable Hydron Epoch Machine, before the natural world closes in around us for a hypnotic and simple yet striking Mutant Education. As with the twists and turns of each composition, the titles deliver their own sense of imaginative guidance, which helps all the more so in shifting the narrative so consistently.
Motherboard Sun peacefully enforces its darkness and depth as an eerie yet unignorable later section of the collection. Hints of string-like quickness juxtapose the density and power of underlying bass fragments and echoes of light. Another favourite for its sheer creativity, sense of story, and gripping progression.
Memex Air follows and replaces darkness with hints of possibility, hope, and subtle warmth.
The final and thus closing piece of the collection is the sensational and deeply evocative Cosmology Mammal. Uniquely structured and of such a delicate composition that each sound appears as if purely for the listener, this work alone showcases the very best of the Niclas Tamas identity. Its unrivaled fusion of emotion, intricacy, story and sense is blissful to escape into.
From gentle horns to textural pads and lashings of space, Cosmology Mammal feels like a near-euphoric and passionate peak to some long-lived story or epic scene – which indeed it is, when considered as part of the album in full. At the same time, it provides its own degree of calm and comfort throughout a near-six-minute lifespan; a quality that rings loud across this complex and beautifully profound project.
Without question, one of our generation’s most original, innovative and worthy creative producers, Niclas Tamas presents not one but 11 deeply moving and mind-blowing artistic compositions – the likes of which more than deliver on their promise of being The Lullabies for explorers of the permanent extension of life beyond Earth.
Follow Niclas Tamas on Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp & Soundcloud.
