You might be familiar with Mike Fazio under his orchestramaxfieldparrish nom de plume, an arty ambient electronic soundscape project I reviewed a while back. As I recalled with OMP, my impressions were mixed on that double-CD ('To The Last Man / Index Of Dreaming'), liking some of it a whole lot, and the rest of it very much. Fazio's A Guide For Reason project may be similar in overall concept but quite different in execution. The majority of it is extremely subtle; so subtle at time that unless you have the volume up you may not realize (at times) that you are listening to anything. That's not to say that there isn't anything there (there most certainly is) but 'A Guide For Reason' has a propensity to often be so under the radar that when more prominent incidents such as a repeated scratching sound, or a chordal swell, or wispy electronics make there way into the ambience, it's nearly surprising.

One could approach 'A Guide For Reason' in two ways; one is the analytical approach- to listen to it looking for things that gel and enhance the ambiance all the while trying to discern why the artist used this sound or that, and how these sounds were achieved, OR, the intuitive approach- simply feeling what is conveyed sonically in each piece and how it affects you. I favor the latter here as describing the components of the compositions does not really do them justice.

This work is two discs (or actually a disc-and-a-half, the second being a 3" mini disc (or Parts VII and VIII) and is only a little over what a single CD is terms of time, I'm sure the artist had his reasons for doing it this way. The environments on the first disc take you to some unusual places'¦hallucinatory terrains where space and time have been altered, perhaps distorted into other dimensions. The last track on the first disc, #6 ' 'Out From Which Comes The Beginning,' is the anomaly. It is as if the film is rewinding and you get a peek at the inner-workings of the cosmic device. A gentle rhythm emerges like some type of electro-mechanical dance of creation and carries you across the border'¦to the other side.

Disc 2(the 3 inch) ' 'The Indirect Communication' ' here is where the other-worldly entities dwell. You watch in fascination as they interact in their natural habitat. 17 minutes goes by but all concept of time is lost here. 'One of These Is True. This Is True' is a bit more difficult to fathom. In fact, I can't, even after listing to it three times.

The main CD comes in a limited numbered edition of 100 professionally pressed silk-screened discs in a 4 panel digipak. The 3" is a limited numbered hand made micro edition of 50 copies presented within a handmade vellum folio of 4 prints with the disc mounted on artist's black archival board. Sure to become a collector's item.