I'm not sure whether together they call themselves TERRACE OF MEMORIES or not - the cover leaves you guessing. No matter really - it's the content you buy this for & the content's worth every penny. I'd not heard VIDNA OBMANA before this, and knew SAM ROSENTHAL only by his work with BLACK TAPE FOR A BLUE GIRL, but this is obviously a partnership that works. It's slow, drifting, looping, meditative music which creates a calm mood in the listener. It probably leans towards New Age, although I've never heard anything this interesting from that area of music.

"These Ancient Halls" moves with slow, almost cumbersome grace, as if some huge grey, indefinable Body were moving past the listener, creating benign-but-awe-inspiring images, where even the waves from it's passage are close to heavenly. Often you find yourself absorbing 'atmosphere' - i this case the atmosphere seems to absorb you, the sound so huge and wide, covers you from beyond your speakers, filling the room from every & no direction. "Dark Mist, Rain" opens with the ambient sound, of a forest waterfall - an endless stream of water with birds singing in the background - akin to the tapes NEW WORLD have available, yet through this, swelling in deep waves of indistinct sound, comes a slow drift of music - probably keyboard, yet honed to a beauteous, edgeless mellow sound. "Terrace Of Memories", the title track has perhaps a little greyer mood, a sad, tear-filled music, suggesting memories of more pleasant times now lost forever in the more harsh, less desirable present. Harmonic voice carries you ever onward, passing through inner mindscapes enhanced by only good memory. "From Within The Cold (A Fragment)" is perhaps a little colder, less a grey-blue sound than a cold eggshell blue, perhaps bringing to mind a Winter landscape early in the morning after a heavy fall of snow, when you walk out into a world transformed into something beautiful to observe yet harsh to experience. The last track on this album is an epic (17'16") called "Of Silent Crossings", again a slow-moving, drifting piece with cello creating an image of huge bodies moving through a sparse landscape, perhaps some dinosaur, Sauropod or some such, seen within a rippling mist through swamp trees, as it passively moves to a more verdant pool, oblivious to the fact that it's a few million years out of time. Or perhaps Blue Whales, passing each other in great numbers, their leviathan bodies creating surprisingly little turbulence, graceful giants on the verge of extinction.

Okay, so this is not an album for every mood, for every day playing - its an evening or lazy day record, but if you want something relaxing and meditative, then this should sate every need. The only problem with this album is that it ends! Put it on continual play & lose yourself in its blue / grey charms.

More than ever before, Sam lets his emotions run away on a tide of ambient turbulence. Five drifting movements ride the intake of senses, breathing the air of life and surrounding beauty. As fullsome as the cycle of seasons, cascading visions of past and present contact loop and collide. A very deep personal intrusion into the mind & heart, represented by a dark, mysterious and sensual music. Cast adrift into the caring hands of this truly original and honest artist who not only lives within himself, but sheds his soul through others as well.