When Eternity Touches Time
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley July 20, 2020
Artist – Jim Ottaway
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https://jimottaway.com/music/wheneternitytouchestime.php
Master of Electronica Jim Ottaway is back with his 2020 work When Eternity Touches Time, a most intriguing as always and interesting, slightly more mellow offering than his past releases which have been totally spacy, space travel oriented, other than the tribute album Beautiful Desolation which saw Ottaway at his zenith in a completely different emotional place to his usual style.
Mellow, captivating and a stunning example of electronica in its purest form, the tracks simply merge effortlessly into one another, allowing the gentle, reflective and all-encompassing vibe to waft gently and elegantly into the atmosphere.
Gentle and peaceful, the music created is full of a rather elegant charm which captures the emotions on an almost subliminal basis, there and yet not there, almost mystical in influence as you drift throughout the clouds in search of something unknown, but once again familiar.
Sharpe clear notes set the structure for Diamonds in the rain, a thoughtful, clean captivating journey of the much-needed rain as it is sought; a lovely segment of ‘clapping sticks’ has been created as possibly representative of the diamonds of raindrops hitting the parched earth as a life giving blessing.
One of the true beauties of electronica is that there is no set definition of how the music is perceived and understood. The titles of the tracks are the only indicator of what the composer considered as his muse when creating the elements on synthesizer, mixing the alchemy later in the studio, fine tuning the pieces to be as perfect as possible.
When Eternity Touches Time, the tenth track and signature piece of this twelve-track collection has an almost reverent overtone; slow, chunky with a lovely rich timbre, before a higher, faster melody is introduced, offers a very different vibe to the other more relaxed pieces. A truly captivating composition.
Just when relaxation is at its emotional peak the intriguing and almost dysfunctional piece Isolated Realms comes into play; perhaps a reflection of the difficult and challenging times in which we live. A wonderful melody runs throughout the piece which holds it together in a somewhat typical Ottaway-ish style before relaxing once again and for the final composition, into a fully-fledged spacy elegance once again, returning a sense of surreal ingenuity to the atmosphere.
A quote from the man himself sums the work up beautifully and makes the perfect final chord to an outstanding, elegant and deliciously enjoyable series of compositions.
‘The skies‘ – the heavens… the heavenly realms.
Beyond the skies… the quintessential limit. (J. Ottaway)