Erik Wollo: Elevations (CD)

Melodic electronic music with clear beats and strong permeating tunes. Elevations is primarily a synthetic album that has an ambient foundation, but one with an organic heart – graceful chiming themes ring out against ambient textures and delicate chord structures; keening strains breeze across beautifully harmonious drones and layered washes, acoustic guitar elegantly hangs against crackling environmental ambience. The leading melodies are full of feeling and powerfully evocative, stirring up visions of lonely landscapes even more vivid than those of the cover art. Programmed beats drive much of the music, working in tandem with sequenced patterns – restful and set deep into the sound, often steeped in reverb or muted and distant. Elevations unsurprisingly has a panoramic spaciousness about much of it – a sense of crisp, fresh air, the possibility of frost broken by warm waves of tones that gently suffuse everything like the sun breaking through cloud.