Snow Palms - Origin And Echo [Village Green 030 Promo]

Released on November 17th, 2k17 via Village Green Recordings is "Origin And Echo", the sophomore album by the David Sheppard-led project Snow Palms which he basicly and originally created to provide a vehicle for music played on various mallet instruments, solo or in collaboration with musicians like Christopher Leary, Emma Winston and others on this longplay piece. With the title track as opener we see Snow Palms paving the way for things to come, creating a beautiful, yet storming piece of Synth-led Ambient sporting simple ethereal glockenspiel melodies, "Rite" follows a similar path minus the epic synths and provides - hence the name - a more ritualistic, hypnotic and light heartened athmosphere and so does its follow up "White Shadows". "You Are Here" weighs in full on kitsch and romanticism to accompany an exhibition of blurry, misty David Hamilton-inspired photographies of innocence, "Circling" provides a thrilling interplay of two playful, lively and crystalline harmonic counterparts, slowly building up towards an epic, wide screen finale, "Echo Return" is more of a calm and solemn nature introducing a simplistic, yet beautiful piano line before hefty, dramatic synth structures take over in a Vangelis-alike manner and "Vostok" seems to pay due respect to early Synth greats like Jean Michel Jarre and / or soundtracks like Francis Lai's "Bilitis". More crystalline beauty alongside a few sparse ritualistic drums is to be found in "Enclave", "Everything That Happened" gets back to kitsch-drippin' innocence whilst "Black Snow" seems to weigh in more intensity and tempo due to the use of hounded hi-hats as a foundation for the tunes complex harmonic arrangements whereas the final cut named "Illuminations" is more of a score'esque interpretation of a Classical, possibly Baroque dance tune which shimmers in many mesmerizing synth facettes for all those loving their Ambient  / Synth music rich and abundant. Quite a nice listen, this.