Book of Dreams
Another one of Ian Holloway's quietly impressive releases. He's on a bit of a roll at the moment. His deft hand at this moody soundscape palava gets better with each release. Those who've compared him to Elph-era Coil are being a little generous in their praise and a little unfair on Holloway because his work is good enough to stand on its own two legs. The isolationist tones are spatial and resonate deep. The occasional dollop of heavy reverb is clumsy and only clouds what should be a clearly defined horizon. I do wonder if these recordings are merely a soundtrack to his interests in shamanism. While not being practical or ritual in feel, they do have a sense of a world created within the curve of a warp in time. That's how convincingly constructed these sounds are.
It's a pity good work is being put out on CDr and on a label that has the word 'Elvis' in the title, but if that’s what it takes then so be it. - HM, Adverse Effect vol. 3/3
This is an eerie journey into the chilly catacombs of Ian's mind. Mysterious, unearthly & retaining enough tension to dub this 'not quite so late night listening'... unless you WANT to go to bed a trifle scared! Tangerine Dream, Nurse With Wound, Origami Galaktika, to name but three, all have varying degrees of warmths within their desolation pieces because, even at their coldest, they still burn something akin to a gas boilers pilot light. Here, it's like being cast adrift between stars... fahrenheit er, total zero. Today in London the sun may be shining & this room may be bright but I feel cold. So here is something just a dinky bit fresh for our jaded 'civilisation' that has seen & heard everything (but has acted on NOTHING!)... Music to seduce a corpse to. And if you think I am being crass & cringeworthy, check out Lynne Stopkewich's astonishing 1996 film "Kissed"... "We carry the body, carry the body, carry the body..." - "I'm playing the CD, playing the CD, playing the CD..." - Paggie is "Punching the beary, punching the beary, punching the beary..." This is worth Ł4 of any self-respecting necrophile's inheritance money.
- Gary Simmons, GIAG
Boring goth inflected electronic ambience. Nice enough textures, but it has a claustrophobic digital sound that wrecks all the warm tones and rolling blips. Then there's the occasional goth inflections. Which I can't tolerate. Whatever, I wish I hadn't wasted 3 listens on this. - (sorry I've lost the reviewers name, if i find it i'll post it - ian)
As Psychic Space Invasion, Holloway creates ambient music that is deep, spacey, complex, and exceedingly dark. He fills his sonic space with mysterious drones, some of them deep and oceanic, others thin and shrill. Through the drones, gurgling electronics, twitching, twittering glitches, space moans, bell-like chimes and distant voices echo and melt. And even though this music can be categorized as ambient, it never completely drifts into the background. Sometimes the sounds are so arresting that it is impossible to divert your attention away from them. One of the weaknesses of ambient music in general is that often a lot of the pieces tend to sound the same, but Holloway manages to infuse each piece on Book of Dreams with its own unique character. - Jeff Fitzgerald, Aural Innovations
Fourth official cdr release on Elvis Coffee by UK soundmaker Ian Holloway. The name of his project pretty much describes it all - PSI stands for trippy, yet dark electronica, somewhere between old minimalism/computer music and post-industrial. The press sheet mentions Elph-era Coil, which might give you a clue. Though mostly based on synths and effects, the sound is pretty varied, also incorporating desolate piano lines ("Hiraeth"), vocal samples, percussions ("an essence of true sleep", a bit à la Zoviet France) - but PSI's main direction seems to be a grey isolationist ambient ("nothing exists", "yellow duck") with cosmic excursions ("echoes of memory", "the theatre of the warm"). Promising material, but a bit too repetitive in some parts (some delay abuses, for example) and, for me, not that engaging on a gut level. - Eugenio Maggi, Chain DLK
