Search - Harold Budd, Brian Eno :: Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirror

The most beautiful of the Ambient Series--shimmers softly

Joanna Daneman | Middletown, DE USA | 02/10/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Plateaux" is described as having a quality as if "two people decided to suddenly speak a new language made up of coherent sounds but with no pre-existing grammar." Here, the pre-existing grammar could be defined as predictable melodic sequences. Yet "Ambient 2" contains some of the most lyrical pieces of the 4 album series.



The chiming sounds of keyboard or synthesizer are played against either a silent background, fading into quiet, or against a low struck tone that hovers in the background. The feeling is of floating on a lake at night, with the dark bowl of the sky completing a sphere of velvet around you and only the glistening stars for companions.



This is by far my favorite of the Eno collaboration albums in the series. Harold Budd and Brian Eno seem to, indeed, speak a new language that both comprehend and we can marvel at."