[reviews] afe097lcd
mathieu ruhlmann: the earth grows in each of us

Mathieu Ruhlmann has produced some extremely interesting work in the past and one of his recent releases on Afe Records, entitled "The Earth Grows In Each of Us" has filled my ears with sweet delight ever since it's release in 2007.

It's lucky for all of us listeners out there that Mathieu Ruhlmann's catalog of works is steadily expanding because his musical undertakings are quite interesting, to say the very least.

For this review I wanted to concentrate my thoughts on "The Earth Grows In Each of Us", as the character of this release sets the stage for a listening environment consisting of archival drones and slow churning musical movements; both aspects of which I'm highly attracted to. In addition to that, one of the best things for me aobut this release is that it could be described as a bit "dirty," which is great. Nothing is too polished by the melancholy that Ruhlmann creates and therein lies the attraction.

His works remind me somewhat of works I've heard previously by The Third Eye Foundation however Rulhmann's approach to the material differs in the respect that things are much more slowed down and with less rhythmic components integrated.

Given this, one might be tempeted to define "The Earth Grows In Each of Us" as being ambient, yet I feel that this broad definition realy doesn't ellude to a proper listening genera. Maybe it would be best to simply say that these works are reflective of warm swells of piano and lush overlays of decaying, vocal-like sounds.

All things said, the sound elements at play in these pieces are wonderfully diverse and the density of the combinded layers never distracts from the underlining detail to be found there.

Highly Recommended!

[Christopher McFall]