What we have here are 12 tracks of avant-pop cut-up re-mix gratification. Scott Solter (who engineered Pattern is Movement's last record "Stowaway" in 2005 at San Francisco studios Tiny Telephone as well as records for Spoon, Mountain Goats, Two Gallants, John Vanderslice, etc.) took the tapes from that album and with razor in hand re-mixed and molded another disc of experimental tracks full of noise and surprise, rhythms, loops and vocal experimentation. Very few real songs here in the traditional sense of the word, just a spasmodic exercise in the playground of the absurd. A psychedelic treat worthy of any neo-hippie looking for something to help him break on through. I liked it.

First, the comparisons. Solter’s work reminds me of Vidna Obmana ("River of Appearance") and some of Harold Budd’s more ethereal work. If you like these artists, you will probably like this album. This album seems to lack some of the structure of Obmana or Budd but this is not a bad thing. Instead, Solter strips the sound down to textures and drones, creating peaceful soundscapes with processed guitars and other sound sources (I could swear that in one track I heard one of those plastic tubes that you whip around to make a whistling kind of noise... .) This seems to be a significant departure from Solter’s previous album on Manifold Records, "The Brief Light," which Manifold describes as "a complex tribal/percussive-ambient trek into the heart of bright rainforest worlds and afro-alien rhythms, an endless list of primitive instruments and ephemeral human voices" (I haven’t heard this disc but the sample on their site corroborates well with this description). One River seems to perform the drone/ambient formula well. The songs intertwine and blend together and work well as a whole. Nothing too startling in the mix – this is nice ambience that provides an ideal background for reading or other activities. According to the promo material that came with the disc, the disc takes inspiration from the movement of water and "combines to form a continuous flowing piece, with titles that suggest a journey both through physical space, and through memory." This is a pretty accurate description. The music is the aural equivalent of watching a river. The water moves and shifts, but it is difficult to perceive any real change. The only real problem with this album is that it is a bit short. Weighing in at just over 35 minutes, the album is not quite long enough to sink into. Other than that, this is well worth checking out.

Every once in a while, rarely, somebody comes along that doesn't abuse the "ethno-ambient" label by just releasing a cheap drone with a royalty-free tribal chant sample; somebody that actually has that thing called talent, that many seem to have forgotten when cheap DAW's gave everybody the illusion that now they are engineers, producers and musicians. This is one of those instances: San Francisco sound engineer and recordist Scott Solter (known to me for his contribution in Tarentel and Spoon, and probably to some others for his hands in Court And Spark, John Vanderslice, Okkervil River) decided to pick up where he left off in the nineties with O Yuki Conjugate and The Hybryds, by creating a beautifully sophisticated and enchantingly relaxing record where the human factor of performance still plays a major role and underpins its very rhythmical foundation with percussions and other world instruments and field recordings. Hovering over this solid and, to use a record label's expression, "third-world ambience" structure, is a whole new other world of dub bass lines, electronic sounds, breath instruments, manipulation of sounds and recordings. Strictly instrumental, altough you might hear some sampled voices here and there, "The Brief Light" explores many of the world's corners with the swift and delicate fast-traveling movement of a highly technological machine but with the respectful and considerate soul and approach of an exploring pioneer. If all of that still doesn't give you enough of a clou about what you're dealing with, try thinking of this as comparable to an enigmatic, eclectic, emotional, exciting blend of Muslimgauze, Shinjuku Thief, Pink Flyod, Skuli Sverisson, Pat Metheny, Peter Frohmader, P.A ONLY, Rob Levit, Bill Laswell etc. The album is packaged in a light hand-crafted Indian burlap fabric wrap and a folding cardboard sleeve with deep letterpress printing done on antique equipment. Looks very raw and authentic, gorgeous and original.Enlightening overall quality.