(July 2009) Irish composer Jimmy Behan creates his music by processing electro-acoustic sounds and field-recordings. Therefore it was no surprise to hear a collection of oozing tonal meditations on this disc. The Echo Garden is chock full of swirly pianos, droning detuned synths, bells, clicks, scraps and bit-degradation — all lending to a hearty slurry of ambient relaxation.
Stand out pieces are “Rust” which features a lazily pulsing wind chime against a deep filtered sting pad with some sizzles and pops to season, “Across The Rooftops” which plays with the notion of rhythm – threatening a 3/4 waltz with every measure, and the epic-length “Dusk” which crawls through Behan’s disc-spanning repertoire in its nearly 9 minute length.
It should be noted that Jimmy Behan currently holds an M. Phil in Music and Media Technologies from Trinity College in Dublin. This serves to solidify that the smart ones always make the “weird” music. That’s definitely not a bad thing at all. The world needs more soothing, and folks like Behan are well equipped to do so.
The Echo Garden is out now on Audiobulb. [Purchase / Listen
