EXUVIAE - Green House Music - Ambient - "Eclectic Earwig Reviews Music and More for You!"
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Echoes in the Emptiness
by Exuviae
Greenhouse Music, 2000
http://www.greenhousemusic.com

	The Latin word “Exuviae” means either “spoils taken from the defeated
 enemy” or, more commonly, “shed skin or shell” such as a snake would leave
when molting. The artist behind the Latin name is Brooks Rongstad, one of
the founders of Greenhouse Music. This small label specializes in very
esoteric electronic ambient music, which by its nature will only reach an
exclusive audience. Well, I’m one of that audience, and I’ve liked just
about everything that Greenhouse has released. This album is no exception.
	“Exuviae” creates shimmering swirls of electronic drones and sustained
notes, all of them in well-chosen, rather modal harmonic groupings. There is
no beat or percussion; notes phase in and out of hearing with a slow, even
glacial dignity, sometimes with soft accents of twinkling high bell-like
sounds. At times a piece will slowly grow in density and volume to a wide
field of layered sound, only to sink back into obscurity. There is indeed an
icy quality to the music on this album, a good accompaniment to a freezing
winter night. Yet it isn’t emotionally cold; its mood is more like the
“sense of wonder” that I cherish, secretly, as being the finest and rarest
of emotions. If the winter stars could sing, this would be what they would
sound like.
	Because there is no rhythm to any of these pieces, the floating
wave-patterns become hypnotic after a while. If you are doing work that
demands alertness, don’t listen to this. Exuviae will put you into a trance.
It’s a beautiful trance, though, as if you were attending a ceremony in a
cathedral made of clear ice.
	A graphics note: I could barely read the titles and other text on the CD
cover. This is a common problem on Greenhouse albums. Their music may be
esoteric, but I wish their type design wasn’t so obscure.

HMGS rating: 8 out of 10

Hannah M.G. Shapero, EER-MUSIC.com

12/21/00 Winter Solstice


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