Description
- Distant Fires [4:57]
![MP3 soundclip of Distant fires [1:00]](/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/m3u.gif)
- The Great Wheel [4:33]
- Little Angklung [8:21]
- A Walk Through the Clouds [11:16]
- The Hallucinations of Hung Tung [23:37]
- Slow Rise [3:50]
- Ebb in Winter [9:30]
- Float [4:02]
Soundscapes suffused with peace and a sense of floating and drifting beauty
Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity –
This release from 2009 offers 70 minutes of tenuous ambience.
Forrest Fang plays: synthesizer, electronics, acoustic and electric violins, non-Western strings and percussion (cumbus, khustar, saron, kora, sueng, kulintang, baglama, kendang), mandolin, ukelin, marxolin, and Japanese palm harp. The recording was mastered by ambient pioneer Robert Rich.
Ethereal textures are seasoned by exotic strings, producing auralscapes of delicate substance.Tenuous electronics formulate chilled expanses of airborne vapor. These harmonic structures blur into a gray environment composed of celestial sighs.
The strings lend a reverent demeanor to the ambience, generating a subtle sense of agitation that instills a soothing reaction in the listener. The strings manifest in two modes: strummed and sawed. The strummed instruments inject a Far Eastern flair to the harmonic flows, as if any moment the mists will part to reveal majestic snow-capped mountains surrounded by cherry blossom trees. The sawed instruments, i.e. violins, establish a haunting materiality lurking in the sonic fog, an elusive presence that merges with the mist while their resonance is conveyed on gentle zephyrs.
The percussion is faint, existing on the edge of perception, so that the beats elicit subliminal effects on the audiences cerebellum. Their muted impacts serve more as inconspicuous punctuation than as any driving propulsion for the music.
These compositions manifest introspection with ease, each fragile passage designed to isolate the listener from the physical world and immerse them in a realm of pure psychological potential.
2009. Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity
Phil Derby / Electroambient Space –
Forrest Fang is not at all prolific when it comes to his releases, at the rate of one every few years; but one can hardly argue with the quality of the results. Phantoms further solidifies Fangs status as a master craftsman of ambient music with depth and feeling. He has a particular knack for assembling a collection of pieces, composed over several years, which naturally seem to belong together. Part of whats so appealing about Phantoms is that while there are common threads and themes running through it, the music is fairly diverse as ambient goes. World, ambient, new age, and avant garde are all weaved seamlessly together, not overly surprising given Fangs varied musical upbringing, which shows itself throughout.
Distant Fires” is silky smooth and yet with a certain edge to it