SHADES OF ORION (WITH TETSU INOUE)

Shades of Orion, the first in the series, is a trance and ambient influenced collaboration album between Pete Namlook and Tetsu Inoue. This album is basically split up into two halfs: tracks "Biotrip" and "Did You Ever Retire a Human..." are trance, and tracks "Shades of Orion" and "Liquid Shade" are ambient.

Most of the ambient-type albums I listen to become boring very easily, only after the first few minutes of a track, but the ambience on Shade Of Orion is very engaging. The title-track and "Liquid Shade" are both similar to each other: airy, dark, full of beautiful resonances, cosmic sounds circling the listener, synthesized noises of possible life hidden in the shades of a far- off planet. They're very slow moving and focus entirely on floating, spacey atmosphere, which is a good contrast against the other two tracks.

"Biotrip" is calm and only slightly less ambient than "Shades of Orion", featuring a synthesized melody in the bass register that echoes over and over until it is accompanied by a looped beat. The constant groove made by the bassy beat is completely full of spacey sounds and resonances from the ambient tracks, except set at a mid-paced tempo. "Did You Ever Retire a Human..." is similar, but sped up slightly more and seems like much more of a "night club" type of track, featuring another constant bassy groove and insisting beat. The same spacey synths and cosmic sounds as before fly in and out of the soundscape.

Shades of Orion wasn't a revolutionary listen by any means, and I'm not a huge fan of mixing dance with ambient (it kind of defeats the purpose of each genre), but it was overall enjoyable. If there were ever dance-ambient crossover album, this is it. Very good for waking up in the morning, not so much for going to sleep.