My review of "HelioSphere" CD by Radiant Mind | Steve Roach

[richardgurtler]

Radiant Mind | Steve Roach "HelioSphere" CD

Anonymous project Radiant Mind found its safe home at steveroach.com label back in October 2014 with his applauded second album "Strands". Now teaming up with the Master himself, "HelioSphere" CD is out since February 2019 in an immersing 4-panel digipak designed by Sam Rosenthal. Howard Givens gets the credit for his mastering expertise.

Divided into 8 untitled parts, "Sphere 1" unfolds with almost 12-minute prodigiously expansive, sonorously engulfing and continuously circling soundscape. As much nebulously transporting and gracefully magnificent as the heliosphere itself, a grand opening indeed! Drifting away almost without noticing the next chapter, "Sphere 2", which clocks to 6 and a half minutes, keeps tightly on the path and flows as the solar wind, where tranquil meridians continuously commingle with intangibly distant piquant subtleties. What a journey! Longer "Sphere 3" bridges balmily infinite stratums with distant drone hums. "Sphere 4" immediately shifts into utterly euphonious and monumentally free-gliding realms, where splendidly panoptic expansions are bridged with warmly embracing cinematic blankets. A pure sonic medicine is served here and it's impossible to perceive the next piece. So it's quite obvious "Sphere 5" maintains its colossal elegance, what an infinitely engulfing beauty!!! 11-minute "Sphere 6" enters intenser domains, where perpetually helixing vertexes juxtapose with elusively rumbling glimpses, while dimly flickering sequences arise here and there. "Sphere 7" mesmerizingly gallops through introspectively remote landscapes. The closing chapter, "Sphere 8" delves deeply into bottomlessly mysterious drone realms. Tenaciously humming and tenebrously engrossing zones fully reveal all its magic. A truly jaw-dropping finale!

"HelioSphere" is another fruitfully rewarding collaboration featuring creative forces of the Master, the iconic Steve Roach, who connects his eternally blossoming artistic signatures with someone, who prefers to share his gifted wizardry incognito. It's since 2012 when Radiant Mind's debut CDr album "Sense" was released by Darren Bergstein's Periphery label. Yeah, as always with each Radiant Mind recording, the obscurity of its protagonist really drives me crazy, but it's the sonic odyssey that always counts the most. Over 66 minutes long "HelioSphere" is a brilliant interstellar exploration entering the Pantheon of deep space soundscaping milestones!!! Bravo!!!

Richard Gürtler (Dec 29, 2019, Bratislava, Slovakia)