HAROLD BUDD & BRIAN ENO: AMBIENT 2 - THE PLATEAUX OF MIRROR

Sounding very much like the quiet parts of 'Bladerunner', when Harrison Ford sits moping about at his piano with a glass of whisky surrounded by old photos. Plinky plonky heavily reverbed and sustained piano is the order of the day.

All the tunes are rather downbeat, but are extremely beautiful in their simplicity. Brian Eno adds some keyboard tweakery here and there but is submerged behind the piano which always takes centre stage. 'The Plateaux of Mirror' is one of those rare instances where the ambience sounds fully developed and final. What's of even more importance is that all the tunes are memorable unlike a lot of ambient recordings.

Harold Budd always had that distinct piano sound that no-one else ever replicated. The whole album sounds like the equivalent of floating on clouds. The sense of space is enormous within the recording. Nothing is allowed to overpower or interfere with the intensely personal sounding piano. Life doesn't seem so bad after all when you listen to Harold Budd.

'Plateaux of Mirror' is probably on a par with the followup 'The Pearl' as the best Harold Budd album. Both are very similar but this is more consistent and easy flowing between tracks. It's also kept to a sensible length with no bonus tracks on the cd version. Some recordings really do have that 'less is more' feel about them.

Recorded a full two years before 'Bladerunner', you've got to ask the question - was 'Vangelis' frantically scribbling down notes while listening to this?

Haunting yet beautiful in a ghostly way and possibly the greatest ambient album ever recorded. I'm off for a good night's sleep now...