Ron Boots - Ghost of a Mist

!!!!- this thing's ten years old!!!! So, tell me why it sounds better than most of what is coming out of the Euro-mainland synth fraternity right now. Bookended by two of the finest tracks you'll hear on any Ron Boots album, complete with a bonus track now giving a total of six tracks and seventy-three minutes running time, this is easily his finest album ever and as good as Euro-mainland synth gets. The opening track, at 15 minutes, starts with warm layers of rich flowing synths before an undulating electro-percussive sequencer like rhythm slowly emerges as an assortment of synth choirs, lead synth melodies, fuzzed sequencers and more begin to build, the whole soundscape moving deliberately and with purpose, the music filled with emotion and dynamics, and as good an opener as you'll hear. 'In Timeroom Spirits', at nine minutes, is an altogether darker, sombre more reflective affair, too richly textured and well constructed for mere space music. The fifteen minute title track starts with an oriental feel akin to Ian Boddy's 'Jade' album and runs largely with this feel predominant throughout it's slowly meandering course, gentle but firm electro percussive splashes and solid African-sounding drum work emerging to propel the piece slowly on for the final third, as a glorious canopy of string synths flies overhead. The five minute 'On The Field' is a more dramatic, symphonic affair, almost anthemic in many ways, while the nine minute bonus track, 'Flowing Forces', mixes oriental sounding percussive work with thudding synth bass, soaring, rich strings and deep undercurrents, all of which give a real flavor of multi-layered melodic splendor to the music. It ends with the album's eighteen minute 'magnum-opus' in the form of 'Desert Clouds', featuring no less a musician than Mind Over Matter's Klaus Hoffman Hock, and it's strength, the way it builds and the two musicians playing together on multi-synths and electric guitars, is nothing short of mind-blowing for any real synth music fan, building, falling, intensifying, soaring and mellowing out, it's got huge strength while hardly ever going 'over the top' musically.