Review by Vesa

Then you've been out in a mind field and not a meadow.

Neil of KARMAPOLICE has done a remarkable artistry with the electronic music, like floating in a sunny field.

I was captured by the quality of the music, it's minimal, but one hears things that may not be there. A true genius at work to do that. 'Angels Breath' is a tune that truely knocked me over happily with the mood altering sounds and with the alluring vocals of the great Lisa T., singing ever so sweetly. The other three tunes are great as well. It's soothing,spacey, ambient electronic but there seems to be a distinct unique sound that is only Karma Police.

Neil's passion in making the music is genuinely done for the sake of compassion for the listener to hear quality. The tunes have the most enriching sounds that energize, leaving one entranced, especially with some of the awesome percussive, making my senses altered nicely.

It's a must to check out his site; put your 'cursor' on the word KARMA POLICE, and a most beautiful thing happens, that says visually alot about their music. Great artistic graphic animated idea, one of the best sites; very fun, highly creative; a wonderful way of thinking simply, which shows his sensitivity to the viewers' desires!

Now go & listen to Karma From the U.K. and check out both sites:

http://www.funender.com/music/bands/181/

All the best Neil.- Vesa.

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Review of Swept Away by Phrygia

Ambience...

It's what colors your skies. It's what paints the grass. It's what floods a calm lake.

It's what soothes, enrichens, and otherwise makes the inherently unthought of more beautiful, or stunningly abstract.

With the onslaught of incredibly diverse yet esoteric artists claiming ground to the ambient spectrum, one would tend to think it too is an overrated genre. What it is, actually, is the constant search for perpetual truth in what we don't overtly conceive. Take the likes of the great pioneers Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Another Green World, even Boards of Canada and you will at once be enveloped in an intense immersion of sound that contains nuances so sublime, so minimal, that they only poke themselves out at different times. The teeming listener might understand this in layman's terms as this - "Every time I listen to this track, I hear something new!"

This is where the continuum of ambience resides. It's not in the regal splendor of arpeggios gone haywire, trance beats throbbing to nothing, it's where the mind must produce new ways to cognitively understand what is actually being received by the aural passage.

KARMA POLICE (aka Neil Anderson) is so close to this train of thought it's damn near exciting. We here in the Land of Phrygia Acoustic Phenomena and Eclectic Electrode Response Team tend to think of the track "Swept Away" as a fantastic example of just how easy it is to intrigue, yet inspire the brain to great things. KP took what sounds like core elements to an electronic track and made them swirl: beats, washes, arpeggios. All three dance daintily with each other, maintaining a stasis within the track that is easily consumed by the teeming listener. Something that colors the sky.

This is electronic music in the higher sense of the word, with very few drawbacks. Being the ***** that I am, of course I'll point them out. This track only lacks ONE thing - more realistic drums. The cymbal splashes tend to aluminize (or is it plasticize?) the rich movement going on within. Otherwise, this is so basic, so simple, so absolutely concise it almost pisses me off.

You think about the coolest song you ever heard, and then you think deeply about how it was made. It's the EASY stuff that kills you. Neil starts with easy, stays with easy, and it works. So much so, I listened to this track four times in a row just to get the backbone of it burned within my cranium.

This isn't all KARMA POLICE is about. Check out his other offerings, and you'll be pleasantly surprised to hear that this is an artist up and coming, that only needs more and better equipment. Join the crowd.

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Review of X-Winter by gods of music

One might get the impression from his moniker that Karma Police just records a bunch of Radiohead covers or something. Well, he doesn't, and in fact, Karma Police's music is much more akin to early 90's ambient music like The Orb and early Aphex Twin than it is to any sort of rock band - at least, that's the case with the song X-Winter.

Neil Alderson, who is Karma Police, has written a song in X-Winter that is both compelling and soothing. The track is about 8 minutes long, and while it is mainly just a repetition of a few synth lines and drum patterns, it never really loses the listeners attention. At the same time, it doesn't become too intrusive either, which is a trait of good ambient music.

What keeps this song from being dull - besides the fact that it has a rather pretty melody as its foundation - is how it continually builds upon that base melody, which consists of a couple of synths and a bouncy bass part. After repeating that for about 3 or 4 minutes, there is a short break with only some wispy background synth, and then the drums come back in and several more synths are piled on top in succession until the ending fade out.

As far as recording quality goes, it sounds as if all the parts were well captured and there is no irritating hiss or hum present, either. The synth parts all have a very full sound, and even when there is not much going on in the song, it never feels too empty.

X-Winter is a solid ambient work with a very spacey, futuristic feel to it. It is definitely the type of song that would work well to enhance mood, or to help one relax. It is very pretty, and while its appeal may be mostly to an audience that is limited in size, there is no reason that it shouldn't be successful in circles that appreciate such genres.

Craig, GOM reviewer

http://www.geocities.com/sansarcmusic