Oxia Palace is the collaborative project of Norwegian electronic music producer Jan Roos (Super Fata) and American electronic music producer Brian McWilliams (Aperus, Remanance) and 'Kalendis' is the project's debut album, exploring the celestial worlds at the edge of our solar system. The creative process found each artist taking turns starting a "song" by selecting an image to elicit an emotional, musical response. The duo then created a sound palette by gathering mission recordings, sounds and textures using everything from synths and guitars to portable recorders, experimental software and radio static. Sounds were passed back and forth as each artist composed their own soundtrack, sometimes overlapping, splicing and overdubbing their results. This process continued until an album of music neither would have imagined or created on their own took shape. You might never have known this by just listening to the album, as it sounds like a seamless trip through the cosmos. These "soundtracks for the moons" were composed and inspired by the grainy NASA images from the Cassini mission which orbited and measured Saturn, its moon and seven rings.

Obviously SPACE is the place on this ambient album, and tracks (8 of them totaling about 54 minutes) are titled relating to Saturn's moons and NASA space exploration - "S-2009 S1," "KIC7671081B," "Enceladus," "Anthe," "Khonsu," "Nyx," "Dione," and "Enceladus2." Expect a lot of sophisticated multilayered drone as well as some effective noise here and there, but don't expect rhythms or rhythmic synth sequences because this isn't that kind of album. I have heard and reviewed McWilliams' Aperus and Remanance project here before, and I can say that Oxia Palace is not much like them, in spite of some similar techniques he employs here, but with much different results.
I took a brief survey through Roos' Super Fata releases and found him to be an extraordinary multifaceted ambient artist with a lot of very different releases. (Definitely worth checking out.) His partnership with McWilliams seems to be a match made in the heavens. There are many artists who claim their music is "space ambient" but is really just kind of spacey. This is the real deal. Excellent from start to finish. And if that isn't enough to convince you to get this album, how about this the CD is limited to only 50 numbered copies, and it includes six photos selected from NASA's archive of the Cassini mission to Saturn.