KARDA ESTRA & ARTEMIY ARTEMIEV: EQUILIBRIUM

I was having a conversation one day with Richard Wileman, and had been looking through his back catalogue and noticed that I hadn't heard everything he had released. So, this how I have come about to be listening to this 2002 album which was a collaboration between Russian composer Artemiy Artemiev (synthesiser, sampler, electronics, percussion) and Richard Wileman (guitar, bass, electronic and acoustic percussion, loops, vocal and woodwind arrangements), along with Ileesha Bailey (vocals, breathing loop) and Caron Hansford (oboe, cor anglais). Apparently, this was one of four collaborative albums released by Artemiev in 2002, and he has certainly had a major impact on the overall sound as there are significant parts where I wouldn't have said that this was a Karda Estra release at all.

It is the songs where Richard has the upper hand, such as "Open Window", where the album comes to life. The background stays where it belongs, and Richard's guitar provides a repetitive motif that works well, but there are many others where this is an ambient electronic album where Richard is not able to make the impact that he would if it was all under his control. That the artists recorded separately, Karda Estra in England and Artemiev in Russia, probably says a lot about the album itself. That Artemiev's name comes first on the cover probably says even more.

I have been a huge fan of Richard for more than twenty years, long before Karda Estra back when he was working as Lives & Times, but although there are elements that I really enjoyed, overall this is just too ambient electronic for me.