Scott Fox – The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (Digital Album – Ant-Zen)
Genre/Influences: Experimental, industrial, ambient.
Background/Info: We all know Scott Fox for his involvement with iVardensphere and more recently This Morn’Omina. Last year he released this solo-work, which is a kind of adaptation from a poem of the British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” has been written in the end of the 18th Century and deals about the adventures of a mariner on his way back to home.
Content: Forget iVardensphere, this work is totally different. It has something pretty experimental-like and can be the best described as watching a film without images… The work is made of one long duration track going over the 43 minutes, but features 7 distinguishable parts. While the poem of Coleridge has been narrated, Scott Fox composed a sort of soundscape made of industrial sounds, multiple effects and noises, guitar play, drones and ambient atmospheres.
+ + + : I think it’s an original idea to bring a classical poem to life or to make it discoverable to others by putting it on music. The sound is pretty cinematographic, which is a perfect poem to bring the poem in the spotlights. Both, poem and music, can stand on their own, but their fusion has something deeply artistic. Sound-wise I like the darkest passages from the work and the kind of drones. The best part of the poem remains: ‘Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink’.
– – – : This work remains a pretty experimental try-out so I can imagine it will be not accessible for a wider audience.
Conclusion: Scott Fox took me by surprise as this is the kind of work you don’t exactly expect from this artist. I can’t say it’s a ‘must have’-album although an interesting listening featuring a genius poem.
Best songs: “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.facebook.com/scott.foxivardensphere
Label: www.ant–zen.com / www.facebook.com/antzen.official
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
