Thursday, 4 July 2019

Obsqure 'An Oriental Banquet' Review




Artist: Obsqure




Title: An Oriental Banquet




Label: Cosmicleaf Records




Released: 1st July 2019










Having already bagged and exhausted his debut album ‘Tabla Rasa’ I was eager to hear this release. I found this outing although it retains the Oriental fusions a lighter outing than his debut at times putting me in mind of Buddah Bar or even Cafe Del Mar compilations.


The album gets underway with the title track. Where dramatic cinematic strings and keys, are layered over gentle down-tempo percussion, before the trip-hop beat drops and adds more emphasis and the melody moves into an eastern direction. The next piece ‘Sufi Bazaar’ fuses electronic tones and eastern flutes counterbalanced, with shuffling trip-hop beats and subtle dirty bass. Moving on to ‘Shores of Orion’ which juggles soulful vocal snippets and clarinet providing a summery chill out feel.


The orchestral feel returns with ‘Machinery’ and it’s not too far removed from the opening track, just slower in pace. While the intro to‘The Lost Souls of Tamezret’ sound like a snake charmer has been fed through an fx unit, before emerging into a pleasant piece of electronica and pulling the snake charmer back into the mix. The next track ‘November Rain’ is slightly more atmospheric in the intro and a two-step beat is applied, once again it has a relaxing and orchestral feel to the piece. Finally, to see out the album is ‘Niagra Halls’ and I absolutely love this. Again, it’s orchestral but this time with a lovely ethic vocal snippet added. At times in the latter half of the track it reminds me of Bardo State’s classic ‘Seneca’ which in my book is a good thing.


Reviewed by Woodzee


Links





Other recent Cosmicleaf releases to explore

JP Illusion- Artifical Spirit
A new single of ethno psy-chill fusion
https://cosmicleaf.bandcamp.com/album/artificial-spirit

GMO & Dense – The Blue Hole
Another outing of psygressive chill out on this new single


I-One – Forms of Water
An album which journeys through natural field recordings an ambient music


Gregory Paul Mineeff – Thinking of Monday
An ambient piano theedsingle with a down-tempo remix from Sideliner.

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