David Wright talks about the new music from WIM.

When AD Music received the instrumental music demo of “The White Peak” from Ketil Lien, aka WIM, earlier in 2008, it was one of the great demo moments in amongst a sea of mediocrity. As soon as the first track began, I stopped what I was doing – it got my immediate attention! Indeed, as the demo progressed, each track had my undivided attention. When it finished I remember thinking “Fantastic, but too short, needs more music”. It was only when I checked my watch that I realized over 60 minutes had passed by!

Wim lives in Trondheim, Norway and is clearly influenced by the traditional luminaries of the electronic music scene. Wim looks upon his music as paintings where the instruments are substitutes for the colour palette. He says; “I treat each song as a different landscape of sound and try to paint an expressive, emotional soundscape using warm, enveloping sounds that capture the listeners imagination.

Wim certainly does have a great way with music, with rhythm and sounds. He manages to create his own unique identity and style while reminding the listener of all that’s great about the popular electronic music of Jean Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Enigma etc. There are also strong hints of the more recent David Wright electronic music sound and style and the older journey style excursions found in the instrumental music of Robert Fox. Wim also manages to create a lot of emotion and atmosphere, clearly a winning ingreadient in good electronic music!

The music on the White Peak is varied, but retains perfect cohesion as an album. The opening track “The Last Realm” is a glorious opener with deep tones and dark choral voices under the gently hypnotic rhythm. The mood changes with “Sirens from the Past”, a delicate and wistful melodic piece. Econ’s Theme is one of those beautiful themes that reminds me of Enigma, with a theme that just gets in your head and wont go away – a really great track. The album continues with more great music; Secret Paradise, Soft Atmospheres, Gliding Ships, Dark Princess and more; often reminding me of the best 80’s Tangerine Dream music with its excellent structure, inventive sequencing and melodic content. The best is saved for last though and it’s on the magnificent title track that you realize that Wim is going to be around for a long time creating his unique brand of instrumental music. Here Wim creates a moody rhythmic soundscape that is as good a piece of electronic music that you’ll hear anywhere. Gentle rhythms, deep undertones, superb hypnotic sequence and so much atmosphere keeps the listener utterly transfixed. Wonderful stuff!

People often ask us; “Why is an album this good only available digitally or on CDr?” It’s pure economics. In this day and age of declining CD sales, it’s very, very hard for even modestly successful labels like AD Music to launch new music on CD until it’s sure it can recover its costs, and that’s just so difficult with new music. But expect to hear Wim’s music on forthcoming compilations and hopefully, if enough people get tuned into Wim’s wonderful creations, then his next release could well be on CD.

In the meantime, WIM has also donated several tracks to the free music downloads page, so, if you’ve not investigated WIMs music yet, and you really should, then check out the digital downloads and freebies on the AD musicshop online.

~ by admusic on December 19, 2008.