Maju

An engaging blend of implied and overt rhythms with real ambience built up from well-crafted sounds. Maju uses techniques present in the work of Pole and Oval but creates many more musical forms with them. This CD is about songwriting, not sample collaging - these songs have forward motion. Nothing follows a verse-chorus-verse format, but songs will evolve over several minutes both tonally and rhythmically. Maju 2 contains lots of happy major chords, but they are leavened with undulating synth-cussion and scratchy upper frequency pellets of noise. There are honest-to-God melodies - you might even find yourself humming one - and how many ambient records will make you do that? Extreme is the perfect label to be releasing this album. If you have enjoyed their other releases by Muslimgauze and Pablo's Eye, you should check this out.