Album Review
Altara, the collaborative effort between Los Angeles-based producer A Produce and M. Griffin, the Hypnos Recordings founder, is a modern ambient minimalism masterpiece. At first listen the listener could easily disregard it as too sparse, unapproachable, perhaps even insubstantial, but after a few listens the sheer brilliance of the recording and the compositions comes sparkling through. Going beyond A Produce and M. Griffin's significant contributions as solo artists in the ambient/space music genres, this record sees them synergistically breaking new ground, and creating fresher material. This record seems to have a bit more of an M. Griffin sound than A Produce, but timbre color is not the usual M. Griffin style, so it's really very difficult to see where one artist's influence ends and the other's begins. Altara is quite possibly tracing the line of a new 21st century minimalism, quite different from the so-called minimalism works of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley. This record is very representative of M. Griffin's work, but a little more minimal than some of A Produce's recordings, the blending of two different styles creating a fantastic, overall, recording.
