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The Perfect Sonic Sequence - Nucleus - Buenos Aires, Argentina - 26 AUG 05

Reviews

mingo - the once and future world

e|i magazine Spring/2006

Thanks to Mingo and his "Once And Future World," classic space music can be easily had, and not from obscure bedroom keyboardists laboring away in isolated border towns. Synths rise and fall so majestically the entire record's practically canonical; there's the odd blip, the piercing wail, surging drama. Color me impressed that not one note rings false, which is pretty remarkable in this day and age; and this minus the aid of rhythmic underpinning.

Chain D.L.K.

“the once and future world” is a brilliant title for an absolutely engaging instrumental release. The music is just as pondering, dark and beautiful as the title of the CD would suggest. Lush textures and melodies accompanied by faint and distance rhythms. The average track length is just long enough to put you into a comfortable trance-like state without over staying it's welcome. The CD packaging is more utilitarian than anything, offering little more than extremely minimalistic (though appropriate) art, a track list, credits and absolutely no information on “mingo” himself. Produced extremely well and an absolute joy to listen to. Stand out track: “time turned new”. Review by: Tongue Muzzle

Gonzo (circus)

The Once And Future World (HELMET ROOM RECORDINGS/BETA-LACTAM RING RECORDS) Wie had ooit gedacht dat (pv) euforisch zou worden over de combinatie van een naam als Mingo met een hoes vol blauwig ectoplasma? Af en toe maakt de muziek één en ander goed. Gehuld in paars licht drijven de restanten van ons Ego in de interplanetaire mingosfeer terwijl we ons laten meevoeren met diepe drones, ruimtevaartkundige analoge elektronica en trage meeslepende percussie. Breng Steve Roach in een toestand van halfslaap, zet hem vervolgens samen met S.E.T.I. op een spaceshuttle en je komt aardig in de buurt van de pluspunten van deze cd. Aanbevolen voor verre reizen, heel verre reizen. (www.helmetroom.com) (pv)

Melliflua

A new name in the ambient/drone world (new to me, anyway) is Mingo. His album The Once and Future World takes the undaunted listener on a journey through inner and outer space, to nebulous twilight realms that are half dreamt and connect with deep levels of consciousness. Apparently Steve Roach and Numina are influences. You can tell this from the style of some drones and washes, and in some of the tribal-esque rhythms. Mingo uses modern equipment and old analogue synthesizers to extraordinarily good effect, the resulting layers of sound mesh together superbly.

The first of six tracks, "Between the Wave", is a slow motion piece with drones and washes that are varied in intensity, texture, and prominence. Throughout we also hear sparse notes ding into the soundscape and then fade away. By this early stage of the album a comparison to Steve Roach's album On This Planet became inevitable for me, partially due to the sonics but primarily for the spine tingling and dense atmospheres.

Are we being elevated to another plane of existence in "Hollow Ascension"? A wall of sound almost surrounds the listener; strands of hard reverbing synth drones constantly pass by as fast bubbling and thrumming drums keep the pace vertiginously frenetic. A sound something like a distorted and echoey piano plays out a repeating melody that feels as though we're striving to climb up a massive staircase designed for giants. For me this is a totally satisfying track.

The final track, and the longest one at fifteen minutes, "Once and Future World" is a mass of drones being pushed and tugged by insistent currents - we're adrift in a moderately swelling sea that could become turbulent at any moment. One drone stands out above the rest, panning across the soundscape like the brief but repeated scans of a lighthouse beam. It's up to the listener to decide what the tidal forces in this piece could represent. Maybe they're of deep down thoughts, or the gravitational tangle between cosmic bodies, or the struggles of life on Earth.

I'd say that The Once and Future World is not an album for the faint hearted. It's not dark in an overtly scary sense, but it does verge on the unnerving. This is a brilliant work that reaches in to your mind and doesn't let go, especially if the volume is cranked up. I recommend it without hesitation.

The one true dead angel - www.monotremata.com

There's some serious Tangerine Dream worship going on here, dudes and dudettes. This is space music for the new drone generation, though -- thick and layered, with percussion placed so deftly in the background that it takes you a while to even realize it's there under the cloudlike layers of synth bleat. Mingo (the band is just one drone-obsessed guy) makes no secret in the poop sheet that he was weaned on the likes of the aforementioned krautgods (along with Steve Roach and Numina), and the album lives up to its influences. The six tracks here (including the fifteen-minute closing epic "once and future world") are dreamy, droning slabs of thickly-layered space rock -- the good kind, the beautiful and shimmering kind, with no vocals or extra frippery to clutter up the soaring sheets of drone. It's been a while since I heard any of Tangerine Dream's albums, but this reminds me greatly of their early albums on Virgin, particularly PHAEDRA and parts of STRATOSFEAR. The songs are all vast expanses of grand synth lines and drone in which Mingo erects languid cathedrals of sound, sometimes with a beat hovering somewhere in the background, sometimes far more freeform. Everything sounds like it was recorded in a space station drifting far above the planets with the sun shining brilliantly through one lonely porthole. Mere words cannot convey how absolutely enormous this album sounds. Rarely has a band other than Tangerine Dream, Steve Roach, or Voice of Eye managed to sound this dramatically spaced-out and amazingly intense at the same time. Calling all droneheads... calling all droneheads... Spaceship Mingo is preparing to dock, won't you come and listen?

Freemusic.cz

Na šesti rozsáhlých skladbách alba "The Once And Future World" prináší projekt Mingo hudbu na pomezí dark ambientu, industrialu a minimal music. Až na výjimky je obsah "The Once And Future World" zlehounka plynoucí, poprípade jen velmi zvolna gradující a povetšinou prost kakofonických harmonií, zahleden skrze bezpecnostní sklo kosmického raketoplánu do zdánlivého poklidu vesmírných dálav. Jinde se naopak vrací studeným vesmírem proti proudu casu až kamsi do prapocátku lidské spolecnosti.

To když reproduktory zní prastaré tribal rytmy zvukem, jenž jako by vycházel z hlouby zacouzených jeskyní pokrytých kožešinami ulovených zvírat. Zkrátka, hudba Minga se v souladu s názvem alba stretává kdesi napul cesty mezi vyspelou technologickou érou a dobou kamennou, kdy po Zemi behala zvírata, která už známe pouze z ilustrací mistra Buriana.

Hypnagogue featured review - hypnagogue.netfirms.com

A funny thing happened when I was listening to Mingo's freshman CD, the once and future world. After the first go-through, I gave myself a few minutes to think, then played it again, as I usually do. That listening round finished. I went to reach for another CD I'd received--but my hand stopped in mid-reach and instead, I re started the Mingo. And in the middle of THAT listen, quite without my own volition, my hand slowly but assuredly crept toward the CD player and pressed "repeat." For the next hour or so, the headphones stayed on, and I remained gladly immersed in Mingo's once and future world. According to the publicity that came with once and future world, Mingo is inspired by such luminaries as Roach and Numina. Heady pedigree, indeed, but across the course of this superbly deep CD, Mingo proves himself worthy of the comparison. This is spacemusic at heart, with all the sonic depth and sweeping synthwork that implies, but it’s rooted in a solidly organic core thanks to the percussion elements in tracks such as "time turned new," "the infinite deep," and the amazing "hollow ascension." In fact, the combination of "ascension" and "infinite deep" makes up the best portion of this stunning CD, a breathtaking journey 15 minutes total in depth. "ascension" begins with a shifting drone; a cave-echo drum brings in a slow, primitive beat, each strike on the drumhead fading into wind. On top of this, what sounds to these ears like a koto begins a simple melody. The image is that of a solitary monk, deep in mediation in some hidden grotto, playing inner music. "infinite deep" picks up the cave beat, intensfies and deepens it and adds a tactile sense of urgency. It’s a very simple piece, but all the more elegant for it. Mingo then brings the listener back into the darker, cooler depths of his musicspace with "complex refraction." The title track, which closes the CD, is another lush voyage into the ether, with rumbling chords reminiscent of Roach’s "Magnificent Void" and touched with a quiet, peacefully mournful feel.

the once and future world is very much a Hypnagogue Gotta-get CD.

www.morbidoutlook.com

Track Listing: Between the Wave, Time Turned New, Hollow Ascension, The Infinite Deep, Complex Refraction, Once and Future World.

Quasi-classical; sometimes dreamy, sometimes brooding dark ambient electronic compositions, sans vocals. Hits the solar-plexus as well as the brain to produce an effect like being inside the purr of Baudelaire’s cat. Also visionary, as vectored by the titles, of the notion we currently exist more or less in the negative phase of a great waveform which rose to extraordianry civilization in ages past and will again with the cresting of the next positive rising edge. I am wholeheartedly, or at least harmonically, in tune with this sentiment. I long for eternity and escape from the drudgery of this little dog-run planetoid. This music would probably make a great film score ala “Tales From A Parallel Universe”. (Review by AF)

Fishcomcollective.net

Mingo's stunning space music is an exercise in profound simplicity. Often utilizing single prolonged, expanded notes, drawn out in the fluid way that whale song is - only even more stretched out - with the addition of the slightest of textures and sometimes using a tad more, minimalist electronic melodies and sounds, Mingo has crafted a set of tracks that truly carry you into the farthest reaches of space. The sound of Mingo's uberambient space music captures both the mind expansive awe of far away realms but also the sense of the ominous, the alien, the unknown, the feeling of being surrounded by a nothing infinitely bigger than you are. If I made a cerebral science fiction movie (2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, etc.), this is the kind of music I'd want in the soundtrack. Stunning, a five star effort.

review written by: Upchuck Undergrind

Morpheus Music - www.morpheusmusic.co.uk

Style
Ambient drones and tonal layers with percussive rhythms on most tracks. The Once And Future World opens with some dramatic swelling synth strains and artificial plucked string effects, 'Between The Wave' developing into one of the few totally beatless pieces on this CD. As the album progresses there are parts with growling low tones overlaid with electronic flushes - sparse drum patterns sometimes establish a dynamic rhythm, but more often mark time with an uncomplicated regularity adding momentum to the music. Overall, Mingo maintains a simple sound with distinct layers and a clear mix.

Mood
There is a sense of caliginous grandeur to this collection of pieces, the mood varying from oppressive and grey through to almost gentle, melodic. The Once And Future World maintains a fairly sombre nature in most parts although with an expansive air - and although the sounds employed within different tracks vary, the tone is consistent and united.

Artwork
A one-panel insert presents a solarised indigo image of wispy growths, luminescent in their half negative state. The rear of the jewel case presents the track list with times for each along with website and contact details. The front cover image reoccurs somewhat softer on the inside panel with another track list, recording information and artwork credits.

Overall
This is an ambient/space album of smooth analogue textures from a relatively new artist working in the same field as Steve Roach, Thom Brennan and Numina. Most pieces are around the six/seven minute mark apart from the title track that luxuriates in a full fifteen minutes. Track titles indicate the artist's intention of delving into the obscure and the cerebral - 'Hollow Ascension', 'The Infinite Deep', Complex Refraction'. Mingo is currently presented by Helmet Room Recordings based in Portland USA.

Who will like this album
Ambient lovers looking for more in the vein of the less minimal sound worlds. The Once And Future World will suit those liking some percussion and rhythm behind the clouds and a weighty atmosphere to sink into.

Smother.net - Editor's Pick

Soundscapes and textures punctuate this aural fixated outfit. Drone fans would like it. People who enjoyed the ambient textures of The Orb would be fascinated with the bleeding of melodies and harmonies that punish the deep and droning mixes. People who want to sit back and relax and zone out for a while can feel that their zonk-on will be compensated here within. I love it because it’s relaxing and I have a natural inclination for ambient soundscape music. Truly this is a blessing.

- J-Sin