Maps & Diagrams - The Voices Of Time

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

5...according to our Phil on Thu 02 Jun, 2011.

I'm not sure if I've referred to these guys as flaps and diaphragms before but if I have then apologies and if I haven't then they are hereby known as that. Not content with the awesome Get Lost CD which landed a couple of weeks ago here's another brand new album! I'll talk about the sexiness of how it looks cos it's one of the fittest releases I've seen in a while. It's packaged in a case-bound wiro booklet made from old book covers, stencilled with a Japanese stencil (from 1936) that Mr Maps bought and they're all hand stamped on the front. They look amazing and if you're obsessed by packaging then it's time to get on board as this is pretty unique! It's ambient city as well with 13 tracks of varying ambient styles. There's some Schole-y more piano-y led electronic numbers, there's some proper old school style ambient tunes like the ones you used to get in the early 90's with lots of whooshy noises (ie. interesting ambient music), celestial sounding ambient jobbers and some electro acoustic pieces. A few of the tunes have an aquatic feel so you Dolphins Into The Future fans will dig bits of this. 10 years on and he's still doing the biz. Nice!

The Voices of Time is the latest state-of-the-art electro-acoustic avowal from Tim Martin, the neoteric maestro responsible
for the cosmic canon of works by the soi-disant Maps and Diagrams. An acclaimed ambient pioneer whose esoteric
electronic oeuvre has graced such labels as Static Caravan, Beko DSL, Fluid Audio, Smallfish and both Moamoo and
Symbolic Interaction in Japan, to name but a few.

The Voices of Time is Maps and Diagrams 11th studio album and contains 13 songs of new material recorded in Winter
2010 — February 2011 and is limited to 90 copies for the world. The Voices of Time will be available via the Handstitched*
website as well as from Norman Records and Stashed Goods and is packed in recycled, ink stamped sleeves.

Not content with the genesis of such fine works as Antennas and Signals, Smeg and A Pulsating History; auditory
aesthetician Martin, also contributes to the outstanding output of Somme, Sovacusa and Hessien and is currently working
on projects with Estela Lamat, Joel Tammik and Somme alongside Ylid as well as a second Hessien album - but amazingly
still finds time to run the Handstitched* and Cactus Island imprints before the sun rises.

The Voices of Time deploys de-automised production, with a transfer away from technologically driven tenets in favour
of a more tactile tonal humanity, as sound and texture are trusted to recognise their own ambitions. Regular reasoning
is reversed and intentional decay advocated, as the degradation of sound is allowed to permeate every fibre of these
tentative micro sound alignments.

Secretive spoken words and disguised voices are expertly expressed on these naturalistic and authentic aural
arrangements. Improvised pre-recorded and live instrumentational influences are indorsed and infused with hybrid
harmonic textures, delicate dulcet inclines, and a fragmented minimalistic miasma.

Put your life on hold and immerse yourself in a timbral thesis of skill, patience and artistry that ebbs and flow with an
organic sensibility that encourages compositional space, sound source and dimensional musical mechanics to realise
votive vocations.

Track list:

01 Your Weakness
02 Letraset Addiction
03 The Infinite Delay
04 Longshore Drift
05 The Voices of Time
06 From the Archaeas
07 Shake your Bones
08 Odyssey Dawn ft. Ylid
09 Rapid Ear Movements
10 Looks Simple Enough
11 Three Blows to the Mind
12 In Golden Discontent
13 The Next Frontier

timdiagram said:

be quick.....

So, what do you think? Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!