Travelling The Abyss, is as simply as it is titled, described on Micks website as an ambient, musical voyage into the mysterious deep of the abyss and back again. From dark, ambient soundscapes to beautiful melodic chorus’s, this album stirs the imagination and challenges your thoughts. Dark ambient music in specific, always displays a strong likeness for intense environments, in which human existence is hard or simply impossible. Travelling The Abyss’s first scene is set-up within the first 60 seconds and reminds us that this is only the first stage of the perilous path that is taken to reach such a depth. Here you have to imagine you are standing on the sea shore looking out to sea, (complete with sea noise,) from here you are slowly submerged beneath the ocean. The music suggests that you are gently eased out to sea where your journey begins its descent to the deep. Travelling deeper and deeper, into the mysterious depths. The music is written here with precise detail, Mick has created the ability to produce a harmonious sounding descent, whilst invoking a sense of horror. The perfect gateway, to our mystical journey. By the way, if you have never been in very deep waters, let alone visited the abyss itself. There is a forboding feeling of being in another world, a world which is not yours. This is an important and difficult emotion to capture in a structured piece of music, but nevertheless it is employed here with beauty and distinction. A faster pace is set further on into the album, which describes the alien like lifeforms that exists only in the depths of the abyss. Abstract melodies are presented before you, as you enter the underworld. Sounds of beauty and horror collide each and every other second. You get the feeling that the ambient construction here is unlike a William Orbit production. Beyond is the unknown, to-date man has still yet to discover over half of this regions terrain, one day we all may get the chance to do that, wetsuits are optional, however submersibles are essential. Travelling The Abyss moves on to describe the slow journey at these deep, incredible depths that man can only navigate with submersible robots. Discovering simple amoeba life forms to complicated life like structures. The music’s theme takes on a very animated and very descriptive nature. The middle section evolves into a much slower ambient, relaxed pace. The feeling here is of one suddenly being comfortable with your surroundings and so are able to appreciate the very nature of lifes incredible existence here. Rising gently above the sea floor the ambience changes direction once again, Mick has even composed music for something as simple as the sparkling sunlight piercing the dark blue watery depths as you emerge from the ocean’s deep and dark waters and back to the surface. Such detail embraces the imagination and the sensation that you have actually taken this journey. In short I would recommend this album to anyone; it stands as a "film like documentary style album" but somehow drags your imagination into depths you may never have known before. Yes it can be used as "Relaxation" style music as well, but like Jean Michel's Oxygen or before that Tangerine Dreams "Rubycon" dare I say it, is an album of equal merit. The website excerpt in my opinion does not do the album justice, which is a hard thing to do given the time restrictions. However as the album download is so decently priced, why not just buy it and see what all the fuss is about. Written by Dan Marshall. 2008
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