Long time avante-electronic ambient composer, Stephen Bacchus, alias to Grant Mackay has produced excellent ambient several recordings,
runs a superb ambient label, Mirage, and probably curated some of the finest ambient music compilations ever committed to disc such as The Ambient Eclipse. Bacchus knows this genre on a deep level. Straddling the lines between melodic ambient, cinematic drone, and gentle synth pop dwells Stephen Bacchus on The Memory Tap. There are moments on this album that could pass for New Age, a genre this writer is not partial to, more often however, Bacchus keeps to this side of melodic ambientand drone. Opening title track, “The Memory Tap” as well as “A Passing”, “Phases of a Wave”, “Alluvium” and “A Chameleon’s True Colours” are more keyboard-synth-based melodies that evoke 80’s era nostalgia for this listener, but the layers of effects and field recordings reveal sophisticated craft in deeper listens. More evocative songs tend to tracks like “Dreaming in Sanukit”, “Between Earth and Space”, “Comfort Zone”, and “Prodigal Muse” saturated in artful nature dins, broad ambient melodies akin to early, Music for Films-era, Brian Eno, only more refined. Bacchus’ melodies on above mentioned tracks play against field recordings and one another to evoke lush musical dreamscapes. Contrary to most ambient albums, rather than variations of an idea, The Memory Tap features an array of them, each track a fresh experience that contrasts one another. Perhaps a more emotionally
evocative track is “Textured Fields of View” whose melodic overtones tug on the heart strings, where more direct synth notes hit mid way through this longish track. “Dreaming In Sanukit” is another superb ambient piece with waves lapping against shores to dreamy, shimmering ambient mists and punctuated with sparse percussion. You can feel that a lot of care and craft went into each track. Deep, beautiful, often heady, The Memory Tap is an album to be celebrated.