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Beneath an alias and album title which doesn't greatly inspire, Aaron Boot has produced music to dream to, music to be elevated by. The BPM's often hardly register and initially there seems to be little going on here but upon closer inspection, just beneath the surface, a thousand microscopic ants are working away to fine-tune electronic melodies to perfection. Like Boards Of Canada, Sparrow Orange gently sweeps you to an airless, weightless world to subtly stunning yet mildly unsettling effect. This also recalls elements of Labradford or Jason Pierce at his most heart-broken and strung-out while collaborating with 'Ambient Works'-era Aphex Twin or Arovane, all conducted by Angelo Badalamenti. Certainly there are many characteristics of classical music here, albeit classical music disturbingly punctured with a childlike simplicity for mood, melody and serene beauty. It isn't going to hammer you over the head and it could quite easily be obscured in the crowd of a thousand IDM releases yet this record deserves to soundtrack those moments in life that are so easily lost and cannot so easily be re-created. Suddenly even that album title makes more sense, "music is our religion" Boot says and absolutely some greater force is at work here. Quietly, eerily and seamlessly perfect in almost every way.

Ian Fletcher
CWAS #11 - Autumn 2002

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