A touch of (ambient) highway robbery?
Steve Benner | Lancaster, UK | 10/17/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"The "Ambient Highway" series of discs essentially consists of yet another repackaging of the collection of Edgar Froese solo music re-mixes released on the 1995 2-CD set "Beyond the Storm". The original two CDs are here padded out to four volumes (each sold separately) with the addition of eleven previously unreleased tracks, together with the Froese solo compositions included in the Tangerine Dream "Tangents" and "i-Box" disc sets of 1994 and 2000 respectively. In addition, this fifth CD, "Introduction to the Ambient Highway" offers a compilation of tracks culled from across the other four volumes. And if you're totally confused by all that, you are almost certainly not alone.
Most of the previously released tracks which appeared on "Beyond the Storm" were heavily remixed versions of the originals, featuring additional voices, percussion lines and in some cases completely new tunes greatly out of keeping with the original work. Many of those tracks which are included again in this edition have been further subjected to the Edgar Froese compulsive tinkering treatment, but this time in a much more effective and less damaging way. By and large most of the remixing consists principally of re-levelling (the levels are very high on this set of discs), adjustments to the EQ (there is a lot more bass punch, as well as a greater clarity to some of the lines in the new versions) with just the occasional additional harmonic or textural layer. Most of the time, the changes have brought the music more alive and removed much of the blandness which often plagues Edgar Froese's work. Going back to the disc sets after "Ambient Highway" makes most of the earlier releases sound thin and unfinished by comparison.
"Introduction to the Ambient Highway" (subtitled "Roaring Cats And Driving Camels" for no good reason that I can discern) presents a reasonable snapshot across the four volumes of this series of discs. It contains a total of five of the eleven new tracks, the rest of its content being drawn from the "Beyond the Storm" remixes. The selection is heavily weighted in favour of Volumes 1 and 3 of the series (five tracks from each) with just a couple of tracks from Vol. 2 and only one from Vol. 4.
Personally, I would see this release as something of a marketing trick and would caution against being tempting to buy it simply to see whether the series as a whole might appeal. You would be just as well off buying one of the others (I'd recommend vol 1, but only by a whisker) because if you buy this and like it and decide to buy more, you will unavoidably end up buying some of the same tracks again and you could end up with this as a disc entirely of repeats, should you go for the whole set after all. There is so little variation across the four volumes that the cross-section through them that this disc represents is almost entirely pointless. Even the Froese completists would have difficulty arguing otherwise.
"
Mapping Out a Familiar Route
Mr. Richard D. Coreno | Berea, Ohio USA | 11/02/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Edgar Froese issues a compilation of a series of compilations that were inspired by a 2-CD set of past solo material and remixes.
This 13-number set is a sampler from the four volumes of Ambient Highway, which is an expanded form - through additional tracks - of a 1995 release, Beyond the Storm. Essentially, it is an excellent way to travel this route without exploring the entire series and the double-set that got things rolling.
The Introduction is the map to use, since the ambient highway may continue to be "under construction" through re-releases and studio tweaks."
Track Listings (13) - Disc #1