Do not be cautious about this album, because of a few less-than-brilliant releases from FAX lately. This is a pleasant and interesting CD to listen to. The style is a little like Pino and Wildjamin (Xangadix's latter tracks) for chilled trance that plods along nicely, along with some lush, organic synths and chords. The feel and mood is fresh and oceanic, while remaining quite electronic. The sounds are beautiful; chilled synth chords (reminisent of early Jarre, in places, and of Tetsu Inoue in others).The first track is a nice solid opening - 7Homes & Spyrits Part 1 - good soft ambient/techno, which cools down into VCM 100F - Tetsu Inoue-type sounds with chilled rhythms and soft synth passages. Ocean is an even more chilled (to begin with), organic affair - processed, echoey narrative voice with soft dubby beats kicking in later. Level, Voice is mellow and yet has great presence - synth, piano and slow trancey rhythms. VCF CS20 tones things down - a beatless soft ambient passage with a narrative voice talking synth-techno-babble (this track reminds me of the track Albedo 0.39 by Vangelis). 7Homes & 8Spyrits Part 2 is a trancey piece with watery-electronic effects and a general synthy Jarre-ish feel. Omega and Alpha is the best piece in the album; soft minimal trance, organic effects, excellent chords (brilliant narrative feel with ambient piano pieces) and synth (backing synths are very like Jarre - Oxygene/Equinoxe). In fact, I would say the synth is comparable to (and as good as) Klaus Schultz or Jarre in the 70's, although the rhythms are modern. The last track is Hommage a Satie which is a nice short piano piece much like Cosmic Baby's track Thinking About Myself.

The tracks have a soft and narrative feel with no weak spots. As a whole, it's a very good album that has a soft trancey organic feel, with nice synth (and a pinch of piano in just the right spots) and ideas that could easily have turned out cheesy but are, in fact, pretty damn good in the end.

A strong release from FAX.

(review by eddY/2350org)