Horizontal
The title probably refers to the most efficacious position for listening to this drifting, shimmering expanse of ambient music from James Hood, a one-time drummer with thePretenders. This is ambient music that draws on the timeless mix of resignation and awe you find in Samuel Barber'sAdagio for Strings, Brian Eno's "An Ending (Ascent)," and Johann Pachelbel's "Canon," the last of which Hood freely adapts on "Interior Design." Comprising two CDs,Horizontalpresents a floating ambient dreamscape in the first disc, with minimalist sequences that surge in and out, pulling sweeping synth chords along with them. Disc two remixes the first, adding in some deeply chilled rhythms and, on a couple of tracks, the celestially seductive voice ofJulee Cruise. On "Opium," a pedal steel guitar calls out across a southwestern desert plain in space before evolving into a symphonic, albeit low-key crescendo. Hood is an artist who has one foot melting, Dali-esque, in 1970s German space music, while the other taps its toes in more contemporary chill-out designs. He brings it all together on a CD that should become an ambient signpost, pointing the way to destinations out. --John Diliberto