Track Listing

1. Folding Space
2. Mandala/Toronto
3. Manual Transmission
4. Ghana
5. No 2
6. Freeway
7. City Lights
8. Gathering Light
9. Point Of Entry
10. Inverted Man (Dreaming)
11. Sil Lum Tao
12. Terminal (Dtw)
13. Fractal (In)
14. Prana
15. Duat
16. Float
17. Gari
18. Scram
19. Sistrum
20. Climb

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247316 in Music
• Released on: 2001-11-05
• Number of discs: 1

CD Description
Long-awaited second album by Neil Ollivierra aka Detroit Escalator Co. Part of the Detroit techno scene since its inception, he is also an accomplished painter and novelist. Deep,soulful techno combined with ambient elements creates a virtual soundtrack to the city.

Customer Reviews

The best sounds out of Detroit for a long time
Well I couldn't have asked for a better album to round off the year. This record is simply breathtaking.

Most electronic music coming out of Detroit is either techno or house and I always wondered who would use the typical Detroit sound in an ambient way and at last here is the definitive ambient Detroit album.

Now there are beats, but very few, and there are no 4/4 beats, most of the tracks are ambient cityscapes with the melodies and bassline doing the work.

This is one for the dreamer. Neil Oliveirra, the man behind this album, went out on his bike on the last day of summer in Detroit and recorded various sounds of the city which he then put into this album. It is by no means full of samples, very few to be exact, but what he does is let the music imitate the sounds he picked up. From seagulls sleeping in a car park, to sounds of people and the sound of hot air rising up through the manholes, Oliveirra captures it all. Originally a drummer, he is also now a master of electronics.

The opener, 'Gratiot' slowly evolves into a percussion filled melodic piece and leads into 'Abstract forward motion', a track comprised of beautiful, harmonic keyboard sounds. 'Force' is the standout track for me, a beating bassline slowly enveloped by swooshing atmospherics and ending up surrounded by harmonic keyboard effects before slowly fading out again. There are darker ambient pieces, but not dark as in harsh, 'Fate as a chasm' for instance is a much more evenly balanced track with no harmonic keyboards, it just glides along.

Alongside Indio's "Snowdrifts" track, this is the sound of what Detroit really has to offer. At last there is an album full of these sounds that never tire your senses. Listen, lie back and dream of the stars or the motor city.

sublime electronica...
it's difficult to put into words what makes this album so special - as the moods and emotions of the music itself are so understated and perfectly judged... it's a lot more mellow than the music of the detroit techno masters, but easily the equal of any of Carl Craig's stuff in terms of melody.

The music was supposed to have been inspired by Detroit's architecture and it does sound like a film score in places, as it's so intensely evocative. Excellent, mature music that sounds just as good as background music as it does through headphones.

Olivierra keeps the goods coming
A superb follow up to his previous album, 'Excerpts'.

It does lose a bit compared to it's predecessor due to some tracks feeling a bit aimless and lost, but on the whole it's a great album. Continuing with the street sounds, filmic soundscapes and superb production that made his last album so appealing, you can't go far wrong with this one either.

A perfect Detroit ambient/electronica feast!