Voice of Eye

1994 release ** "Voice Of Eye have a strangely unique sound. They manage to combine Ambient beauty with dark mystery and make the two seem like natural bedfellows. I guess that's the true image of what Gothic should be - angelic choruses sung in deep, cavernous cathedrals which might just have been naturally-formed caves - visions of holiness which might just concentrate too obsessively on the kind of things one might encounter posthumously if one doesn't live a 'Good Christian' life - demons, Satan, hordes which wait in dark places, ready to grab the unsuspecting and drag them off to a place beyond the realms of sanity. VOE seem to possess, in equal quantities, the harmonic glory of Vidna Obmana's velvet warmth, and the cold, stark horror of Throbbing Gristle's Industrial mortician's slab - an other-worldly place which invites relaxation while never promising that you'll wake from any sleep they induce the same, unaltered person you were when you succumbed to the dark velvet seduction. There's nothing harsh or threatening here, but there's plenty of black suggestion, which is tantamount to the same thing. Ethnic drumming on most tracks combine with ethereal voices, giving it much the same feeling as Dead Can Dance exploring Eastern mysteries. And there's enough variety here to please most ("Melting" with it's very electric, sparky rhythm, the angelic chorus of "Waking", the mysterious lands of imagination on "Blooming", the almost TG-ish moments of "Drifting", the Lull-like drift of "Dreaming") while appearing to be one long, connected mood piece. This may be Dark Ambient, but it's miles from Isolationism. It welcomes, engulfs and seduces with it's beauty, but never grants you a sense of ease. The incomparably beautiful music of VOE is here portrayed in all its ethereal, dark, drifting majesty & splendour. Moody as Koner, as mysterious as Vidna Obmana. Classic experimentalism."