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Comment by wildplum on April 25, 2010 at 8:40am

Diane ArkenstonePublisher's Website: NeoPacifica Records

Diane is the wife of prolific new-age composer/producer David Arkenstone. Together the two formed the recording-company NeoPacifica through which they have published a variety of well-produced meditation music and new-age artists. Diane has released two albums to date, the first being very new-age orientated. However it is Diane's second solo offering Aquaria (subtitled: a liquid blue transcendence) that is probably the best work the label has released to date. As you read reviews of this album across the Internet, descriptions like "seductive" and "enchanting" will keep cropping up. This is because Aquaria is a stunningly immersive journey that drags one beneath the waves into another world with it's airy synthesisers, programmed drumloops, earthy rhythms, electronic basslines and Diane's wispy Mythos-like vocals floating in and out of the mix like the ocean-tide. The album opens with a beckoning whisper that starts the 9-minute opus World of Light before kicking into gear with shakuhachi melody, light hip-hop drums and wordless intonations. About halfway through, the track moves into a more eerie territory with its rhythmic harp arpeggios panning from left-to-right, distant flutes and piano. The Water Garden is a much darker work with its growling synth basslines, atonal synth-horns, slowed violin and panflutes. Tracks move effortlessly from Celtic new-age, as on Through the Veil, to synth-orientated tracks like the title-song Aquaria. If the oceans had a soundtrack album, this would surely be it!