The Mechanical Voices

Brian Malone's debut album, The Mechanical Voices, is a lush sound-scape of experimental music written, produced, and engineered by Malone in his studio in Dublin, Ireland.

Although ambient in feel overall, this album features a mixed bag of musical adventure. The varied choice of compositions included here play out more like a collection of short stories rather than a whole experience from start to finish but the result is a solid representation of Malone's style and musical capabilities. He has written soundtracks for short films previously, which is evident here and gives this album the propensity to double as a portfolio for future collaborations with filmmakers.

The diverse range of instruments used on the 10 tracks are all played by Malone and are accompanied by sampled voices and various sounds such as music boxes, bells and distorted guitar. The compositions fluctuate from being sinister and foreboding, as in the opening track titled, 'Spiritus Domini,' to the gentler, more whimsical and floaty fourth track on the album, 'Sleighmaker'.   Mandolin, piano accordion, strings, percussion and voice lend a European carnival quality to some of the tracks, giving them a sense of the macabre and further illustrating the filmic potential of some of these pieces - 'Scaramuzzi' and   'Welcome To Nancy' are two such compositions.

Drawn to music, recording, and sounds during his youth, Malone has continued to create and experiment with musical landscapes. He toured with indie band Whipping Boy in 2005/06 and lists Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Mike Oldfield, Tom Waits, and Puccini as his musical influences. He has evidently drawn inspiration from some of these greats for this album - there is more than a touch of Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' here   - and has combined the use of repetition and the layering of textures, reminiscent of minimalists like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Michael Nyman. But it is the influence of world music that is at the core of this collection of pieces.

The borrowing of harmonic and melodic forms and textures from other cultures has been a consistent feature in Western music for centuries - Mozart's 'Rondo a la Turk', Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Mikado,' and Dvorak's Hungarian folk music influences are but a few examples of how music from other cultures has been appropriated (or some may argue misappropriated) into 'serious' and 'light' music alike. But with the explosion in recording and sampling technology in the past 25 years, exposure and access to world music has never been as great as it is today. Paul Simon's 1986 'Graceland' album brought the music of South Africa to the world's attention, and the work of Peter Gabriel's Real World project has ensured that many distinctive and unique music styles from cultures around the globe have been similarly enjoyed by audiences everywhere.

While Malone's atmospheric compilation is not ground breaking by any means, it is an interesting borrowing from an eclectic mix of musical styles. As a showcase from a single artist, this is a plucky opus.