Moody and dark, Ancient Dreams is colors painted with sound
S. Gordon | Indiana | 08/03/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Patrick O'Hearn was one of the first "New Age" artists I discovered many moons ago. "Ancient Dreams" is still one of my all-time favorite albums of any genre. The moodiness struck a chord with me during a trying time in my life and it remains with me to this day. Putting this CD in the player takes me back to a time in my life when i needed an outlet for my darkness. And as a musician, I like to think I can see colors in sounds and this offering sends me all kinds of colors and textures. Even, at times, overwhelming me with it's landscapes - some of them alien, some of them from deep inside.Do yourself a favor and at least sample this disk. My only complaint is that it is only about 30 minutes long."
Don't Miss This One!
K. Glenn | Arizona, USA | 12/05/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Patrick O'Hearn's, "Ancient Dreams," is truly a wonder! This is such an extraordinary album that anyone who listens to new age music should not pass it up. The musical atmosphere is strange & mysterious, sparce yet rhythmic, evoking a sense of the deep and hidden passageways of dreams, ancient or contemporary. The music is timeless."
Dynamic, Powerful, Timeless, Well-Orchestrated
Distant Voyageur | Io | 11/16/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is Patrick O'hearns first album. It came out WAAAAAYY back in 1985(I was just a toddler then). I first heard the title track and the dark disturbing masterpiece song Beauty In Darkness when I got his Private Music Collection in 1998 and O'hearn has since become one of my top ten all time favorite musicians. The music on here is rather dark, spacey, and electronic, contrast to his post Indigo material which I like as well. Give a listen to the haunting title track with those thundering drums combined with a spacey atmosphere, Beauty In Darkness with a dark almost like an approaching storm with. The opening track At First Light is a gorgeous song with haunting synthesizers combined with some tingling synths. I heard that the melodic structure of this song was sampled in a club hit ten years later with Robert Miles Children and Patrick was not too pleased. While I love children a lot, At First Light is a new age classic. My only complaint is that this CD is only 32 and a half minutes long but the incredible quality of this timeless masterpiece makes up for it. This album is a new age classic and all fans of Patrick O'hearn, both fans of his acoustic medievel mid 90s material as well electroheads like me should have this one in their collection. In fact every album by Mr. O;hearn is worth owning from this one all the way to his new album So Flows The Current."
An incredible first effort - beautiful New Age music
Bruce Ewing | Eugene, OR USA | 07/18/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I am astonished to just realize this was his first album. When you first get a Patrick album, the songs sound nice, but you don't love them immediately. You have to listen to each album every day for 2 weeks to fall in love with a few of the songs. I would call the style "Experimental Jazz-based New Age." Similar to Tangerine Dream, but the sounds here are not so exotic. The whole album is good; the title track is a masterpiece -- it contains every facet that makes Patrick's music great: A very clever experiment actually using a piano as a percussion instrument (I've never heard ANYONE else do it!), the little heartbroken trumpets, and his unique genius at playing the melodic line of a song super-slow. (Each note lasting many measures.) The album would be worth it just for this song, but the rest is good! Metaphor, Indigo, and Eldorado are my favorite albums of his (in order)."
Dark, mysterious, and a study in contrasts!
Brianna Neal | USA | 09/30/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
""Ancient Dreams," released in 1985, is the first "dark" New Age album I ever acquired, and it's still one of my favorites--juicy, complex and predominantly electronic. While filled with percussive textures, this is not mindlessly beat-driven club music; it's a fascinating, ever-changing and very intelligently crafted journey through mood and sound. One of the things I love about it is how seamlessly and elegantly Patrick O'Hearn manages to combine apparent opposites--heat and chill, denseness and light, drama and funk. It's truly a unique and deliciously striking brew of musical nuances--simultaneously relaxing and stimulating. In the liner notes, commentator Freff writes "Music wears a thousand masks, and exists for a million reasons. It reaches our heads, hearts, and our bodies. It can be gentle, pleading, angry, demanding, healing: as fierce as fire and as cold and dangerous as thin ice. It is so many things because we are so many things, inside. The most special music reflects our private selves." This is a perfect description of Patrick O'Hearn's keyboard and synth-driven compositions. For more electronic explorations of the dark and mysterious, try also the work of Tangerine Dream, Enigma and Amethystium.