LULL

I was skeptical, mainly because at the time my favourite album was "A Hundred Days Off" by "Underworld," almost the opposite of Lull in Electronica.

But when it finnaly arrived, I was amazed with the music.

"Slow Fall Inward" depicts an eerie field... You're just kind of, floating across it... The wind blows... You hear strange noises...

It can be a little creepy, even in the daytime.

"Lonely Shelter" depicts a dark cabin, no one is home, it is mid-afternoon\dusk, and there is a lot of dust in the air, and sunshine coming inside the cracks in the walls.

There is a feeling of desperation in the cabin, as if some spirit were trapped in it, trying to loose itself.

"Long Way Home" depicts night-time... Walking down a dusty road at first, then after a while... You appear to be walking down a dark dark long hallway, very slowly... You cannot see what is infront of you, or behind you, but you hear noises, all the time, causing you to look up, down, and all around...

"Lost Sanctum" depicts a dark forest, where there are some train tracks, there is a feeling of death and blood in this area, and it is not the kind of place you would want to be in the middle of the night.

You hear the train in the distance, and while you are standing here, you look over your shoulder, always expecting something to be standing right there.

This album is definatley worth the money, even if you're skeptical, if you're into electronica music, you should definatley get this one.

A. Taylor (courtesy of Amazon.com website)

Curiously the opening track on this album starts off sounding like a piece from a CARPENTER film taken down a couple of octaves. Unlike later LULL explorations, this still retains a strong structure, and has quite a charming, pacifying warmth to it which envelops the listener in smoky-black heat. There's a similar feel to this piece as to the VIDNA OBMANA / STEVE ROACH "Well Of Souls" CD - slightly Mystical Eastern with flute like sounds climbing over the top like lonesome seagulls. The second track sounds more like a cross between the first "Dreamt About Dreaming" album and ART OF PRIMITIVE SOUND - bones crushed to dust on the cold stone floor of a cave while bodies move around in the shadows - machines are humming in the background which makes the dwellers in the dark Morlock-like. Track three moves into fragile places once more - deep underground, yet warm as the fires of Hell. It massages you softly, almost lovingly, but has as much hidden evil to it's purpose (I feel) as had the "Murder Ballads" albums. A similar feel - lulling, passive, promising peace and comfort, yet it has enough darkness to never completely put you at your ease. The fourth and final track is less focused than the previous pieces, less adherent to composition, relying more on drifting imagery, flowing sounds filling in the gaps within structures. As such it again sounds more like the driftwork explorations of "Murder Ballads".In many ways I feel that this is the best of LULL's albums. While there are a lot of people doing similar work in the field of Dark Ambience (or Isolationism?), this album shows LULL to be at their most unique and powerful. It hangs in the uneasy space between cossetting beauty and dehumanized coldness. Personally I could listen to this for hours.

Antony Burnham (courtesy of Metamorphic Journeyman website)

Harris already had two Lull efforts under his belt by the time Cold Summer surfaced, but this packed-to-the-brim disc was easily the pinnacle of his efforts up to that point, four lengthy songs that more than anything else justified the "isolationism" tag that surfaced at the time to describe chilled, cool ambient. Comparison points to the work of Thomas Köner and Main in particular work here, and in some respect Lull finds a particular balance between both, combining the sense of hushed alien landscapes from the former with the obsessive focus on rhythm from the latter. It's easy enough to hear the connection to Scorn as well, with the chief difference being the lack of any drums or conventional rhythm loops, but with the focus strictly and solely on the slowly evolving textures and looped tones instead of beats, Lull achieves its own identity instead of simply being a Scorn remix, say. As much as the album title, the song names capture the atmospheres at play — "Slow Fall Inward," "Lonely Shelter," "Long Way Home," "Lost Sanctum." The songs don't start and stop so much as solely waft in and drift away, steady and slow progressions that float like ghosts. It's the weird, nagging rhythms almost buried in the flow of drones and muffled, stretched-out chimes and rings, the rising and falling of tones rather than drum hits, which provide the core to the tracks, making the experience more than just background music. Listening almost forces a hush on potential listeners, shot through as the album is with just enough potential threat. It's one heck of a long way from the hyperspeed blur of the earliest Napalm Death records, to be sure, but Cold Summer demonstrates clearly how Harris is very much the master of extremes.

4 1/2 stars out of 5

Ned Raggett (courtesy of the All Music Guide website)