THE BEGINNING

The Beginning is a set of early music by Phrozenlight. Considering that fact, I expected very little from this album. Strangely, it's actually very good, and sounds overall more like the more uppity music from Pete Namlook than pure electronic ambience. One important element that sets this album apart from other Phrozenlight releases is the inclusion of beat patterns that really give these tracks a sense of energy, but still in a rather dark context. This is very trance-like space music. The atmosphere that this album creates is very alien-like, in world filled with alien mechanisms, bleeping and blooping down alien roads. I feel like tracks like "Dreaming Dolphin" and "Desert City" would be a great fit for a soundtrack to some bio- engineers bio-engineering a custom life-form, and tracks like "Moondawn on Speed" and "Trance Express" would be fitting for when that custom life-form breaks out and annihilates everyone in the lab through a bloody escape route to freedom.

The only track that doesn't have an effect on me is "Temple of Syrix", which I obviously half- expected to be a Rush cover. It's not, but it is a repetitive synthy beat with very faint percussion in the distance. Not bad, but not particularly interesting (or a Rush cover).

Surprisingly good and different from what I'm used to with Phrozenlight. I recommend this to anyone who is interested in progressive electronic but doesn't have any experience away from danceclub trance music - this is a good crossover album. Spacey, synthy, and dreamy.