2001 release  **  TCOB continue to create some great, minimal and intriguing music. Stripped bare, with very little going on, this is nevertheless a mighty work. ERIC KESNER, the guy behind TCOB, goes to great lengths to let people know that this is purely a guitar album with just one sample appearing on the last track. You may not think this worth mentioning, but when you hear this music you'll realise why. Mutated beyond nearly anything else you'll ever hear on this instrument, it's impossible to tell what the sound source had been without being told. The music falls firmly into the field of Dark Ambient, or, if you subscribe to such pop-culture tags, Isolationist. Certainly either word would describe the Stygian veil of night that emanates from the speakers. Doom-darkened clouds of booming noise, minimal and all the more powerful for it, seep from the speakers along with distant Industrial factory whines. This sound is carried along on a gradually-decaying delay - stretching out into both the past and the future, from nightmare to waking consciousness. It lulls you into a soporific state then offers you dread and fear if you were to succumb to it's seduction. Not that there isn't a lot of beauty to be found in these rich rolling tones. The third track most certainly has a harmonic magnificence which seems both heavenly and disquieting, offering peace at a price.  And while it's not exactly unique in the field of Ambient Music (certainly Lull have terraformed this area, and Koener has made music to be played low, almost subliminal) it is a great example of the genre.