Slow Time
There comes a time in most ambient electronic composers' careers when they head into the abstract. Melody and rhythm are abandoned for a music that explores the timbral and textural possibilities of their instruments.Vangelisdid it with withBeauborg,Steve RoachwithThe Magnificent Void, andthe OrbwithOrbus Terrarum. Now Patrick O'Hearn follows suit, albeit in a less confrontational style, with a CD that is largely generated by analog electronics, each piece a study in timbral flux and ambient design. Fans of O'Hearn's popular electro-melodicism fromAncient Dreamsor deep melancholic washes fromBeautiful Worldwill find little to hold onto inSlow Time. The opening "Music for Three Vibraphones" is dedicated to Frank Zappa, though comparisons to Steve Reich will more readily come to mind as O'Hearn spins an undeveloped melodic cycle with vibraphone-like metallic tones. Other pieces move even further afield. With its pinging tones and glissandos, "Let's Move On" wouldn't have been out of place at the Columbia-Princeton electronic music studios of the 1960s. More familiar O'Hearn turf can be found on "I Could Live Now," with its austere hand percussion, thready piano melody, and electro-jungle groove, as well as on "A Welcome Sigh," the only piece that comes close to O'Hearn's patented sound with one of those sublime Satiesque melodies.Slow Timeis an album of experiments and departures for this veteran artist.--John Diliberto