Ian Boddy

A Listener's Guide To Distant Rituals (by Sid Smith)

I've been listening to the final mix of the Distant Rituals CD by Ian and Markus. I'm struck by the depth and beauty of the music. There's a real warmth to the overall sound and the mixture of Markus' Warr guitar and Ian's electronics work together in all sorts of unexpected ways.

On A Beginning In Light as the gothic architecture gradually unfurls, at the 3 minute 50 seconds mark, a strange howling, repeating siren like sound, comes in. I asked Ian about it recently. Oh its from a tape loop I did back in the seventies. I just never knew what to do with it at the time. We reckoned that Markus would have been 5 or 6 when Ian recorded that loop at Spectro Arts Workshop in Newcastle!

Within The Space Between Things is a brooding, smouldering piece of atmospherics with Ian working on the colour and shading.

Trace The Memory contains a truly blissful solo by Markus. The pure clear tones weave effortlessly around the swirling rhythms which Ian deploys. The drums are half speed and the gorgeous sub bass sound with a killer bass line that would keep many a dance club fan more than happy. In fact there's something deceptively joyous about this piece, despite its languid, rolling beat.

Distant Ritual goes off into more mysterious territory, with sounds and the shades of melody shimmering in a heat haze. Reuter uses shards of sustained notes to etch away at the backdrop of sounds. Strange voices lend a sense of dark, menace as the track ebbs away. Chilling but totally thrilling. It may well be my favourite cut on the album after the opening track.

Presentation Of An Offering fades in with a deep, meandering bass and what could well be the sound of thighs being slapped in some obscure Tyrolean dance macabre. After a while the bass sound develops a parping rasp which I confess did little for me. Markus and Ian laugh contemptuously at my objections and tell me to stick to the label co-ordination (whatever that is).

Its just possible that this track could become a dance floor classic. Listen out for the cathartic gurgling at the 4.00 minute mark as filtered whisperings become a shuffling, brushed jazz kit and Markus slaloms up and down the scales. Invigorating stuff.

Voices Of Doubt starts with impressionistic washes of colour. Its dark and foreboding and reminds me of some aspects of Boddy's Continuum. It blends seamlessly into A Delicate Re-enactment. The faraway thrum of machinery shrouded in a cold, swirling mist of sound begins life as a dark ambient exercise. This gives way to a delicate plucking of notes and a slow unravelling of melody and form. Its moments like these where its not what you play but what you leave out that becomes as important. Personally, I could take a whole album of this stuff but then again I am more than a little biased.