I have mentioned before how i am fond of the 7" single. Well, in all honesty, i picked this release up because it was $3 and, well, i liked the name of the band. Kind of silly i know, but sometimes when you take chances like this you get interesting things. (Please note that i only will review the interesting chance encounters here, as you really don't need to hear about generic metal bands or crappy lo-fi pop acts.)

So, Dreams of Tall Buildings have released an EP that is a double 7". The packaging is pretty darned minimal: a cardboard mailer with their logo on it, two discs in plastic bags (song titles printed on one side only, with cryptic messages etched into the vinyl near the label), and a little advertisement/mini catalog for the label, who are apparently in Birmingham, UK. The mini-catalog sheet describes the release as "atmospheric sound collages and rhythms". That's really about right.

This is slow ambient music made out of layers of various samples. Whoever is responsible for the music has done a really good job with it. There are vocal samples, which are interesting snippets or conversations or speeches, nice drones, strange rhythmic sounds, etc. All fade in and out to nice effect.

It's not really possible to describe music this ambient. I mean, there aren't instruments, or a verse/chorus/verse structure to discuss. It's music that ebbs and flows, growing in the background, painting a picture of some kind (and i suspect that picture is different for each listener).

I listen to a fair amount of this type of music, and i honestly feel that the Remember the Words is one of the better releases in this genre. To me, this sounds like what The Orb would have done in 1994, if they had decided to do a fully ambient release. That is, this release consists of sound collages that remind me of the quality of stuff The Orb were doing in their heyday, only DoTB use fewer beats. Basically, I think that, in 1994 The Orb were doing things with samples that no one else had ever thought of, layering hundreds of different sounds into rich and complex structures. Dreams of Tall Buildings do that too – if you sit and listen on headphones, you can have a different listening experience each time, as you focus on different layers of the sample mix.

Well, either that makes sense to you, in which case you probably want to add this release to your "to look for" list, or it makes no sense whatsoever, in which case you probably wouldn't enjoy the EP anyway.

I, however, am rather impressed, and hope to see more from this artist.