Regional Surrealism

The line that separates "ambient" from "boring" can be a thin and indistinct one, as is the line that separates "intriguing" from "puzzling." On his debut musical project under the name Konx-Om-Pax, visual artist Tom Scholefield dances back and forth across both of those lines. At its best, the music on Regional Surrealism evokes Bill Nelson circa Chance Encounters in the Garden of Light; on tracks like the gently gorgeous "Chambers," with its sounds of tapped crockery and bell tones, and the dreamy "At Home with Mum and Dad," Scholefield creates sonic wonder out of abstraction. The Nelson connection seems almost deliberate on (notice the title) "Sura-Ture-Gnosi-Cosi," which involves both a quietly throbbing beat and borderline-creepy religious spoken word samples. But at its worst, another thin and fuzzy line comes to mind: the one that separates "abstraction" from "random laziness." "Zang-Tumb" incorporates some fun and interesting samples, but fills out the sonic space with what sound like randomly struck synthesizer notes, while "Pillars of Creation" is a rather grandiose title for something that sounds like little more than the pulsing of simple Casiotone chords. This is an album that hints at plenty of promise for the future, but most of it has yet to be realized. ~ Rick Anderson