The brainchild of enigmatic Dubliner “Greg”, alongside a host of music-minded souls, including a former In Tua Nua man Martin Clancy (who also handles production duties), The Virtually Invisible Landscape Of Sound is a rich musical melting pot of styles, grooves and beats that traverses genres like other bands change hairstyles. Think Enigma jamming with Manu Chao and you’re still only partways there.
Album opener ‘Bless The Child’ takes a vaguely Latino rhythm, adds some old skool Philly soul and tops it all off with a healthy dollop of jazzy brass for a super-smooth stretch down a Californian highway.
‘Glory Hole’ gets more menacing. A debauched bassline and driving guitar provide the engine room, over which a seriously addictive staccato soundbox plays out a faux-disco melody.
‘Flower Sutra’ and ‘The End’ are a bit too nouveau-hippy for my tastes, but the otherworldly beauty of ‘Wish It Was Yesterday’ strikes just the right compromise between stream of consciousness and structure.
Elsewhere, there’s the ragga tip of ‘Push It On’. ‘Walking Down My Road’ takes Burt Bacharach’s ‘What The World Needs Now’ down an electronic by-way, while ‘Dirty Harry’ mixes freeform jazz with insistent latin rhythms.
The easy-listening ‘E.I. Siam’ blends into the truly epic ‘Cuban Love Story’, a distant but far earthier and more political cousin of the Velvet Underground’s ‘The Gift’, condensing the history of Fidel Castro’s country into six minutes of funky basslines, layered backing vocals and sumptuous strings.
A chill-out album for the 21st century or a modern electronic symphony? Who knows?
What is beyond doubt is that The Virtually Invisible Landscape Of Sound is never short of interesting. I defy anyone to listen to its tranquil tunesmithery without feeling like they’re floating in a massive vat of soft, gooey stuff that forms the perfect antidote to another stressful week.