SHADES OF ORION 3 (WITH TETSU INOUE)

Shades of Orion 3 is, of course, the third installment of the Shades of Orion collection, which is a collaboration between Pete Namlook and Tetsu Inoue, and like the last two installments this is an ambient album. Fortunately, the ambience on this album is far better than on the last two. Shades of Orion 3 progresses more thoroughly and has more interesting elements thrown on top of the ambience to make paying attention to the soundscape much easier and exciting, whereas the previous two just droned until it ended.

"Betelgeuzian Ritual" is the oddball track on this album, and sounds like a more straight forward version of anything by Autechre. Spacey, but with a fast and near-abstract beat. It's a good track, but I personally don't feel it is a good introductory track to an album that is so calm. It's deceptive, but luckily, it's short.

"Stranded On Rigel 3" is almost 40 minutes long, and is one long airy drone. To keep this track of interest to the listener, though, there is another Autechre type beat section that fills the second/fourth of the track at about 9 minutes in to 17 minutes. It's directed more towards the background, as the airy textures and spacey sound elements take the front, making it sound less like dance music and more like speedy space travel. The rest of this track is the steady, loud, and airy cosmic drone that the last album in this series consisted of entirely, of course accentuated by the intergalactic sounds of stars and life-forms communicating, with the occasional buzzscape appearing.

"Inouecent And Sirius" is a track of resonances coupled with disembodied and echoed voiced. Again, very airy and is mostly a constant drone, but there is more empty space left for the imagination to fill. The buzz of a black hole's gravitational pull appears frequently, and helps to pull the listener into this dark spot before sending them adrift randomly into a spacey void, ending the album on a note of mystery.

Shades of Orion 3 isn't as good as the first installment, but is much better than the second. Though the largely-ambient soundscapes on this album do happen to be more captivating than those on the previous installments, they still tend to drift a bit into pointlessness. The second track on this album, most of all, is too long for its own good. If you've listened to the previous installments and want more of what is basically the same, then this is the next logical step.