Description
- Icon [9:25]
![MP3 soundclip of Icon [3:00]](/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/m3u.gif)
- Shining [11:11]
- The sacred ordinary [9:33]
- Blue heron [4:47]
- The still center of a turning world [7:25]
- Presence [5:11]
- Cascade [9:18]
- After all [3:12]
- Turning towards the sun [6:06]
- Slowly beating wings [6:50]
Slowly unwinding sonic webs of beautiful ethereal electronics
Artemi Pugachov / Russia –
The album starts with Icon” which features multiple sequences that make up a mesmerizing and intricate tapestry of sounds. The track reminds me a bit on Steve Roach’s and Robert Rich’s rhythmic
Steve Roach –
On Sacred Ordinary Pauls artistry of creating a palette of rich emotional sounds sets a foundation from which he weaves a series of electronic web like pieces with a keen sense of melodic invention and dimensional symmetry. There is an hint of nostalgia in these tracks as well if one has been privy to the classic melodic sequencer style electronic music periods over the past few decades. This brings another kind of depth to the experience while at the same time this music is really about the here and now as it unfolds with a kind a graceful patience and awareness to detail that keeps pulling you in deeper with each play.
2003. Steve Roach
Jeff Pearce / To the Shores of Heaven, Bleed –
‘The Sacred Ordinary’ continues Paul Ellis‘ quest of fusing rhythm and melody into one unique and personal voice. The end result is one of the most listenable and interesting electronic recordings of the past decade.
2003. Jeff Pearce / To the Shores of Heaven, Bleed
Paul Nagle / Sound on Sound –
Nothing Ordinary about this one…Sounds like a classic album that has somehow slipped through the net. It has a timeless quality to it that I hear very, very rarely these days. a kind of mellow sadness pervades some of the tracks but it nevertheless leaves you feeling good.
Genuinely uplifting… It draws you in with its simple surface appearance that belies the subtly complex undercurrent.
A real human feeling soaks through this album.
2003. Paul Nagle / Sound on Sound
Jim Cole / Godspace, The Way Beyond –
The Sacred Ordinary really expresses musical freedom to me and it’s a sensual delight of timbres, rhythms and melodies. I’m in awe at all the music you soulfully create with electronic means and make it sound so natural.
2003. Jim Cole / Godspace, The Way Beyond
Bill Binkelman / Wind & Wire –
Paul Ellis‘ latest solo work is worth getting (for electronic music fans, at least) just for the opening track, Icon”
Craig Padilla / USA –
This CD has a sort of sacred spacemusic quality” to it. The melodies have a mysterious spiritual energy that exudes positive vibrations to my ears with each listen. From the first track (which reminds me of explorers stumbling on an ancient supernatural worshipping site)
Brian Bieniowski / The Ambient Review –
Synthesist Paul Ellis has come to prominence lately with a string of impressive and acclaimed Berlin School sequencer albums… Somewhere at the intersection of ambient synthscapes and entrancing sequences lies The Sacred Ordinary, Ellis‘s latest record… This is dramatic electronic music, well paced and with ever-changing sequences that feel like gentle showers brushing over the listener’s body. Ellis is careful to intersperse the track with many random tones and sounds to keep the listener actively involved–it’s a strength that prevents the sequencing from getting too repetitive… the sequences and synthwork here are top notch–sure to please any fan of modern synthesis… a very entertaining and diverse work that often manages to transcend the boundaries of its genre as it attempts to reach ever higher into the stratosphere.
2004. Brian Bieniowski / The Ambient Review
George –
I listen to electronic music since 30 years and this one is one of my favourites,simply a class act.Music for in your dreams.
2004. George
Carl Jenkinson / UK –
Paul Ellis‘ music is like a mixture of the old Berlin School influences & the melodic/ambient American EM of the 1990s (think Brain Laughter et al). The result is a modern day version of so-called ‘Picture Music’ &that has an otherworldly quality.
2004. Carl Jenkinson / UK
Paul Rijkens –
Every now and then, an album comes out that really does something to me… there is an electronic music album that has caught my immediate attention, The Sacred Ordinary” by Paul Ellis. This American isof the most highly acclaimed musicians in electronic music. His work with the band Dweller At The Threshold as well as his solo albums are considered to be highlights in the retro-style. His music doesn’t follow the “standard” sequencer/Mellotron work that usually can be heard in this style but has also touches of ambient and is a little experimental.
On “The Sacred Ordinary”
Jim Brenholts –
The Sacred Ordinary” might be the strongest Berlin school CD of the new millennium and it is certainly one of the best of that style – EVER! The compositions have depth
Edgar Kogler / Amazing Sounds –
An excellent sample of Paul Ellis‘s talent as a composer of a Space orientation. In this well cared for album, he takes a route through unusual life experiences, places and characters, which are described with an impressive sharpness in the music.
Thus, we find rhythmic passages which are truly powerful, dominated by overlapping layers of accelerated sequencers. And with slow pieces, rich in well-defined melodies, which range with an exquisite uncertainty between the beautiful and the enigmatic.
Also remarkable is the collaboration of Rudy Adrian, the keyboard magician from New Zealand, already well-known for his impressive albums of Space Music.
Famous synthesist Steve Roach, on the other hand, collaborated in the post-production phase.
2004. Edgar Kogler / Amazing Sounds
Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity –
This release from 2004 offers 73 minutes of engaging electronic music.
Joining Ellis on several tracks is Rudy Adrian, with Steve Roach lending post production artistry to the entire album.
Nimble fingers stimulate keyboards to release sprightly tones into the air. The atmosphere swiftly fills with these weaving textures. Crystalline riffs cavort in tandem with each other, looping to generate a twinkling panorama that evolves with each subsequent cycle. Gradually, grittier sounds enter the mix, their gravelish presence lending the melody an earthier demeanor.The dominant aspect is grandeur, however. Chords that inspire inhalation without exhalation. Riffs that fill the soul with expectancy. Complex interplays that quicken the pulse and flush the face with rapture.Sedate sequences invariably lead to feverish passages that seethe with vigor and dazzle. Chords fly with passionate delivery, sweeping everything into an urgency that exudes importance. The tuneage radiates a dynamic drama, rising from passive intros and fading into vaporous closings.
Ellis has a way of organizing these euphonies to achieve spectacular histrionics that remain in the listener’s mind long after the CD has finished playing. His compositions evoke a lasting impression.
This union of land and sky is a subtle undercurrent, though, for Ellis‘ focus in this music is heavenly elevation. Humanity’s relationship with celestial divinity is not the topic here; the real spotlight is on great power as it exists apart from mankind.
Viewing such majesty becomes a spectator experience, as the listener becomes immersed in observing the presence of divinity in everything around us.
2004. Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity
Alan Atwood / USA –
Paul Ellis has truly struck a chord with Sacred Ordinary! This CD contains some of the best music on the planet – maybe even the solar system! Wow – what a remarkable collection of material – all on one CD.
I cannot help to be enthusiastic about Sacred Ordinary, or any of Paul Ellis‘s works. Sacred Ordinary is a work that allows the listener to go beyond their dreams and escape into their own world. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction that this CD is among my most treasured in my collection. From the very first time I heard this music I was hooked. You cannot help to be taken by the melodic interludes, or drift away in the sea of undercurrents. I use this music for stargazing and for my home office, and I must say that Paul Ellis is a true blessing and his music has blessed my life in a very real and positive way.
2004. Alan Atwood / USA
Christopher Chamberlain / USA –
There are many talented artists in EM, whose paintings are magnificent, but in the Sacred Ordinary, Paul Ellis has created a sonic Sistine Chapel – and I took up flight and was carried away to higher climes.
If electronic musicians of the future will see farther, they will have done so by standing on the touchstone of the Sacred Ordinary, which is a paradigm event unfolding – a new reference point.The music is close to being divine aural inspiration, floating & travelling without movement, because your already there. Not bound to anything known, it is free to go where no others have been.
If the EM world were ancient Egypt, then Sacred Ordinary is the rising Sirius – a chalice of colored flames, a flowering shoot of sound, a realm of possibilities about to go supernova. Paul plays and the cosmic keys are at his fingertips. He reveals and I am in awe!
Sacred Ordinary is the Force, you can feel it in a moment of timelessness, experienced like a Baroque work of art. A fusion of romance with science, brilliant passion and splendor. Through the music, other places you will see – spacetime ,long ago and far away , celestial seas and the future, a splinter of light in the minds eye.
There is a Round Table of electronic music icons, and if you happen to see an empty seat, that is the Siege Perilous and it is reserved for Paul Ellis. If you seek the Grail, there is a name written upon it and it is called ‘the Sacred Ordinary‘.
2004. Christopher Chamberlain / USA
E. Alan Meece / Mystic Music –
I like this CD better now and will play it on my show. I put it aside before, perhaps thinking I might play it later, without listening carefully enough. I thought it was kinda thin and trite at first. Well, I made a mistake. At least I admit it when I do, unlike some people.
I think the CD does have a few overly-repetitive parts, but mostly it is imaginative, sensitive and gentle. It is in a neo-TD style of course, but has a lot of variety.
I do recommend it.
2004. E. Alan Meece / Mystic Music
Phil Derby / Electroambient Space –
The Sacred Ordinary is rightly called a solo effort because Paul Ellis musical stamp is all over it. But Ellis joins forces (again) with Rudy Adrian on four of the tracks, and the disc had post production artistry” by Steve Roach.
A successful result is therefore not at all surprising.
“Icon” is a beauty
Roy Jackson –
Having experienced the genius of Into the Liquid Unknown I didn’t know where Paul would go from there. But when I heard his 2004 album, The Sacred Ordinary released by Groove I soon found out. Well I thought the last one was brilliant, and then this. I listened to it with headphones the first time I played it, and boy, am i glad I did.
From the beautiful opening track Icon through the next amazing sequencer track Shining which has to be heard to be believed and totally blew me away (there’s another equally brilliant one later), through to the sublime and divine final track, Slowly Beating Wings this album is a pure joy to behold.
I hold this album up as probably the Holy Grail of EM.
It is pure unadulterated magnificence and genius from start to finish, and Paul’s best work that i have so far heard. The production on it is also magnificent. Can he do better than this? Who knows where Paul is concerned. I wouldn’t bet against him.
2006. Roy Jackson