Variant – Aurora's Dream

If you're a fan of the DeepChord or Echospace axis of releases for the past 3 days I've had this in my possession there hasn't been a moment it ended and I didn't want to turn it back on again. Very seldom do I find music this powerful, truly, one of the best and most hypnotizing releases I've heard from Variant yet! Given I hold them all to high standards this says a lot.

Well if you're reading this I would think that you would be new to the Variant sound and need some guidance as I'm sure by the time this reaches the discogs store the price will be high. Is it worth hunting and paying for? I would say that if you are a fan of Variant's more recent release "Dreaming Through Vector", then yes. This feels almost as a continuation of that release where I have been listening to both releases back to back this weekend and both sound complementary to each other. Where "Dreaming" shifts focus through its journey, "Aurora" remains consistent through out. There are no changes in rhythmic patterns (once the kick comes in of course, that takes at least around 10 minutes before being introduced in each track) but that does not make it any less interesting. The slow changes as the tracks on this release build against each other where there is more noticeable filtering (mostly band and effect filtering) that make listening to these releases such a great joy! Again, the Variant sound is not breaking new ground but again I'm unaware of anyone else putting out albums of this scope. Overall, there is nothing new from Variant that could not be described as the Variant sound but that is not a bad thing. In fact, I would be dismayed if Stephen tried to change the direction of Variant. As for myself, when I see a Variant release I am buying it based on the expectation of a certain sound that Stephen's sound design provides. If you have not heard the Variant sound before I would suggest going to echospace bandcamp page and listening to some Variant snippets and see if it is for you. Also, expect a snippet to offer as much as the full release as these releases are long and are meant to be experienced. If you are looking for something more dub techno-y, I would go to his Intrusion/phase90/echospace (with Rod) guise. Definitely looking to more journeys such as this!