Tuu - One Thousand Years download free

Falling into the cavity between New Age & World Music, this group offer a selection of music which relaxes, suggests mystery & fascinates the listener with it's wide variety of sounds & images. While not alone within this field of music, TUU certainly (hand) carve out a place for themselves among the likes of VASILISK, O YUKI CONJUGATE, LIFE GARDEN & even MUSLIMGAUZE. The first side opens with "Fetish", which grows from a strange looped atmosphere, through ambient shapes & gently thrilling pan pipes into a beaten rhythm, The sound has so much clarity that the ears can clearly define the finger bells which tinkle in tiny sparkles. Again the sound reduces from rhythm to ambient shapes. "Body Of Light" comes next, built on bowl gongs & flute, it is a beautiful, ever-changing, colourful piece with atmosphere shading from dark mystery to pastel oranges & yellows. It builds in intensity, synthesizers adding body to it's sound, creating a simmering pot of Eastern images. "Exile" uses sounds which sustain, sounds which fade in from afar, combining with strange atmospheres & a rhythmic backing like the musical re-interpretation of flies swarming, all building into a gentle-yet-large, almost understated rhythmic piece. "Pan America" opens side two - the longest track on the album at just under ten minutes, it builds up on shimmering synthetic sheets of silk, combining high bending percussion with flutes & atmospheric sounds to create something a little different - the higher pitches almost lance the ears, while all sounds create a more sterile atmosphere - not free unfettered, wall-less & roofless, but in a more Western, sterile environment. "Sand Garden" combines long-sustaining sounds (gongs, chines etc.) with barely-definable vocal samples, 'found' atmospheres & strange noises to create a piece of mystery, a non-beat oddity which seems steeped in strangeness. "One Thousand Years" returns to rhythm, combining flutes, pipes, ghatam, pot drums & bowl gongs with synthesizers & odd high-speed vocal samples into a strange, fascinating & beautiful atmosphere. It is a serious enough piece. using it's sounds to create a certain mystery, yet intentionally or otherwise has a mild degree of humour. enwrapped within its sampled voices. If anything were to recommend this album, other than my saying that if you're into this music, you will not be disappointed, it's the fact that, despite the fact that it totals around 47 minutes, it seems so much shorter - not a second seems wasted, no note seems over-used. The tape has amazing clarity, with sounds appearing way up in the higher reaches - just think how much better the CD version must sound. Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.