Solar Fields – Ourdom

This release is a bit of a mixed bag. I'm not really sure what this wants to be. It starts out with a deeply beautiful and contemplative track Burning View, which carries on into track two and I am feeling this is going to be a deep ambient journey, but then into track three you experience a premature crescendo and overbearing snare hits that really broke the atmosphere for me. From there on, I am a bit confused about where this is going. A couple of mediocre dance tracks emerge leading up to the amazing track Joshua's shop, an exaltation of epic proportions. After that, the music drifts off again into mismatched vibes that feel very forced to me. As a whole, I would not feel compelled to listen to this again except for the great track Joshua's Shop, which is the only track that would compel me to buy this CD. It feels like the artist had the narrative for this release early on and was not able to carry it through, forcing in tracks that don't belong. Too bad, because Joshua's Shop was not given the proper set up that it's majesty deserved.

Unfortunately and with some pain, I have to agree with seccharasse. This is among the weakest Solar Fields releases, if not the weakest. It sounds technically good, yes, but nothing memorable, nothing that will make you long to put it back in the player. Shame that this trend continues with his next album too - Formations. I miss the magic present in Cocoon Moon, Insum, Small Little Green Cubes, Sol, Discovery, Elevetor Sunshine Girl, Union Light, Jeezlh and so on and so on. What I loved in Solar Fields' sound is the grand variety present, mainly that all of his albums up to Altered (included) are very diverse and full of melody and atmosphere. They feel inspired. Those two last ones feel inspired by the generic trend of ambient music...

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beautiful album but somehow I feel (like for CBL) that the soul of its music has changed since he left Ultimae. Maybe I'm just too nostalgic or attached to that era, but I really think those years were the best for his music. The guys from ultimae did provide some artistic direction and truly made what was already brillitan material turn into outstanding gems.
Ourdom is a beautiful album but somehow it hasn't strike me as strongly as all his past material did. I find myself only occasionally listening to it and haven't truly fallen in love with it. I could not even name a specific track above another, and I am a true SF fan.
(I could almost say the same about Derelicts by CBL, but that one is more on the easy listening spectrum so it does get more plays)

This is a very strong release in the vein of 'Until We Meet The Sky'. One of his strongest albums imo.

It is safe to say that by now one can firmly expect Solar Fields albums to have impeccable production, delicate care taken in sound design, subtle details in the mix and no self-indulgent technological showing off.

Ourdom, the very recent release by Magnus Birgersson aka Solar Fields is no exception - but apart from the polished technical elements, the musical aspects of the just-under 80-minutes-long album don't let expecting fans down either.

In today's collapsing attention span, shrinking to almost a singularity, it is quite uplifting to see an artist trusting us with well-structured, seamlessly flowing long pieces in the vein of the epics by Klaus Schulze.

Burning View, the album's opening track, is gently introducing the epic musical adventure with a floating ambience and subtle sonic ornaments. The gradual transition to solemn piano chords in Shifting Nature, then to the anthemic uplift of Into The Sun is a typical and very satisfying Solar Fields construct.

One can fully expect to be gradually taken to climaxes like Mountain King and Moving Lines, which are high-octane, but perfectly economically done EDM pieces with imaginative changes and variations.

Tracks like Wave Cascade provide a repose and a chance for introspection between the energetic currents of the aforementioned tracks, and Ourdom is very capable of shifting us between inner states as it does so with musical epochs, too...

Joshua's Shop with its ascending playful notes is taking us from electronic ambiences to a classical period, when the first glassy harp-like notes appear... As a delicate, nostalgic and exquisitely economic piece, it again shows how sound design, musical elements and thinking in structures can produce a concise and evocative sonic picture.

If one was not convinced by the range of imaginings heard so far, then A Green Walk and Parallel Universe can show us how eminently ambient atmospherics and spacey harmonies can fit in with the more soaring and driven ages of the album.

One can appreciate in some perfectly put-together long mixes the way in which different moods and tempos can be combined into a whole sonic journey, the mix becoming greater than the sum of its parts.

However, to state the obvious, here we have original material composed of 13 tracks, each seemingly conceived to be organic parts of the greater unit: just inspect closely the subtle way in which musical elements of a track can reference other sections they build up from or dissolve into...

It is a rare treat, and in a rushing world it is perhaps outrageous to strongly emphasise that Ourdom is best enjoyed, due to above reasons, as a single musical journey - and not track by track. Having said that, each track perfectly functions on its own, and, again, in typical Solar Fields fashion, each is a little electronic gem.

The album flows and connects very distant moods, from pure atmospherics to playful melodies to energetic motions, but the transitions are never with harsh edges...

On Ourdom, there are no right angles nor sharp edges, only ascending and descending waves and curves...

Magnus Birgersson has produced yet another great album. Atmospheric and haunting at times. He never fails to deliver.