REVIEWS:

from Musique Machine (May 2012):

orchestramaxfieldparrish - Crossing Of Shadows

'orchestramaxfieldparrish' is one of the primary projects of the under-recognized Mike Fazio, a New York musician dealing mostly in sophisticated soundscapery. I am lucky enough to have heard the previous release, the masterful double album "To The Last Man / Index Of Dreaming" (technically released as ÆRA, 'presented' by orchestramaxfieldparrish), as well as his concise 3" CD release under the "A Guide for Reason" name "VII - VIII".

At first glance, the new album "Crossing Of Shadows" contains many of the same ingredients as Mike Fazio's other work. This is not at all a bad thing as his formula is a robust one: this is a colorful, melodious ambient music, 'ambient' in the classic sense, and also classically infused, with real, audible notes! The natural timbres of stringed instruments are shrouded in a glowing digital cloak, delicately treated to enhance their reverent qualities, divine overtones extracted and amplified.

This album in particular relies on heavy use of silence. It has patient elegance, and a hushed, haunting, fragile beauty, like icesicles dripping. It is slower and more dynamic than his previous works, and each gesture feels more intentional. There is no excess.

First of six pieces, "Thirst (Revisitation)" is quite the imposing entrance. First, a hollow howl of wind, soon dramatically joined by a string chord resonated and echoed into vast, unstoppable drone. At peak moment, an orchestral hit slices through the sound like a knife: eerily, it ceases; a few seconds later, swells anew, now encircled by whispering rushes, rattles.. The track explores many shadows and crevices, but always drone returns to lift us up.

The second track "On Nine Mile Marsh" begins in a kind of slow, crackling pulsation I associate with tape loops, and then disperses into deep emptiness weathered by thick, slow swells of filtered synth and noise. It's a beautiful and classic sound. "Lost Star" borrows a few of the strange bubbling, consonant resonances found on the "A Guide For Reason" release, and compliments them with expansive synthesizer textures and rushing reverberation. Its abrupt ending is food for thought.

Elsewhere "Mystery By Moonlight" and "A Walk Amongst The Raindrops" represent Fazio's romantic yearning. These are watery soundtracks for solitary pondering and meandering in the Fall and Winter months. In "Mystery By Moonlight", there is a notably perfect blending of field recordings and synthesizers, and a hazy naturescape becomes perfectly imagineable. Anyone who has experienced it first hand will also be reminded of the peculiar way crickets can be nearly deafening when found in abundance. "A Walk Amongst The Raindrops" was instantly my favorite track upon first hearing the album, an intensely emotional soliloquy for rippling synth and the delayed, percussive pinging of droplets.
"Lament" is a duet for a pure, shimmering synth and piano that closes the album is perfect 'lunar ambient' fashion and recalls Coil songs like "Tiny Golden Books", which is never a bad thing.

Overall, orchestramaxfieldparrish's "Crossing Of Shadows" is an entrancing, emotional and unique work of soundscape music, too melodious and pleasant to be referred to as 'avant garde', but far too sophisticated and experimental to lumped in with most of what passes for 'ambient' these days. I highly recommend Fazio's vibrant and intelligent music to any listener with a little patience, and this is one of the best examples yet of his style. - Josh Landry

December 2011 - "One of the top 20 of 2011" - textura

from Bad Alchemy (August 2011):
Mike Fazio war zuletzt in der Band von Copernicus zu hören. Crossing Of Shadows (fs12) zeigt den New Yorker Gitarristen wieder in seinem eigenen Reich. Als orchestra maxfieldparrish wandelt er in elegischen Gedanken, die das Andenken an Jeff Ladd, seinem verstorbenen Partner in Life With The Lions, noch intensiviert. Die Schatten dröhnender Wolkenbänke sind durchsetzt mit den Schritten eines Spaziergängers, von Vogelstimmen und von Grillengezirp. Etwas Helleres als Dämmerung oder Mondlicht ist zu der düsteren Stimmung schwer vorstellbar. Fazio suggeriert gleich mehrmals das Bild eines einsamen Wanderers ('On Nine Mile Marsh', 'A Walk Amongst The Raindrops'), eines Melmoth oder Heathcliff, der eine gothische Aura als Mantel um sich geschlagen hat. Durch 'Lost Star' geistern gitarristische Klangfetzen, das Brüten weicht einer neuen Unruhe, sogar einer pulsierenden Bewegtheit von kaskadierend verhallenden Echos. Ganz unerwartet kommt jedoch eine Männerstimme, die, von Pianonoten umsäumt, etwas auf Japanisch raunt. Die In memoriam-Stimmung hellt auf zu 'Lament', das mit Pianoschlägen und hellen Drones Ende und Anfang in eins setzt, zugleich Feuer und Rose, gestärkt durch den Trost, den T.S. Eliot mit 'Little Gidding' spendet, dem buddhistisch angehauchten vierten seiner 4 Quartets (wenn es denn ein Trost ist, sich das Verbrennen im Nessus-Gewand vorzustellen als Liebkosung durch die Hand, die es webte).

from Norman Records UK:
...according to our Business Lady on 15 June 2011:

This is a repressing of orchestramaxfieldparrish's 'Crossing Of Shadows' album. Originally released in 2007 it's been treated to a makeover (remaster) and reissued with a bonus reconstructed version of 'Thirst' (originally in the soundtrack for the film 'Caligari: An Exquisite Corpse') added as a cheeky bonus. orchestramaxfieldparrish's music is the height of ambient bleakness. Constructed from treated and non-treated field recordings with occasional appearances from guitar, piano and voice, 'Crossing Of Shadows' invites you to a dark musical place. It shifts from an almost industrial coldness to a spiritual light in slow and steady waves that engulf the senses and makes for a harsh yet potentially hopeful music listening experience. Serious business.

from furthernoise:

Previously orchestramaxfieldparrish has navigated interstices between experimental ambient and a neo-classical distillate, dealing in ritual tone-whorls over dark drone and post-Gothic colourings to wispy atmospherics laced with orchestral infusions. Mike Fazio’s questing sensibility manifests here in a turning away from repetition of gestures. Where the previous was restless in its experiment, Crossing of Shadows is more restrained, self-contained - immediately more timbrally open than To The Last Man / Index Of Dreaming, and before that The Silent Breath of Emptiness, whose narrow focus on abstracted guitar-tones is expanded, integrated into a wider architecture. The album was released privately in 2007, but only now gets a full public issue. Comprising 'six dark lamentations,' perhaps of a general existential nature, though likely with a specific personal ceremonial note – this at the passing of a friend, to whom the album is dedicated.

Its 'lamentations' are formed of aether and earth, oneiromantic and spatial. The ancients had it that ‘through suffering comes wisdom’ and this may be at work here, especially in Part One, as Fazio transmutes mourning to enlightened musical movement. It sets out contemplative but unsettled with “Thirst (Revisitation)”; originally part of the soundtrack to the Caligari: An Exquisite Corpse DVD project, it hosts an initial lamenting cadence rising and extending through the soundfield, before a caustic drone sounds a signal to an irruption of spectral sound, a seepage of low-end crackle and hum, fluctuating between remote decay and more visceral attack. “On Nine Mile Marsh” comes with ominous sonorities before Part One’s brooding conclusion, “Mystery by Moonlight.” This is pervaded with a sense of eerie-serene reverie, communing with Coil. Fazio has an inveterate predilection for other iconic ambient / space / drone artists, and the lately resanitized ’70s Kosmische of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, and these are no less present here - a hint of Cluster maybe, even a passing glimpse of Sky.

A paradigm shift in tenor comes with Part Two - less grim, more elegiac, with flickers of light more insistent, and darkness diminished. The light-seeking tendency is notable on “Lost Star,” (see above), with its spatial guitar leitmotifs and discreet treatments. “A Walk Amongst the Raindrops” is propelled by a sublimated echo-laden hypno-pulse before taking a meditative turn to spoken word (Japanese) and piano interludes. “Lament (“The end is where we start from, a new beginning always begins with an end.” “…Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is…”)” (gulp!) grounds celestial guitar-streams with a ballast of piano chords in closing. Throughout the album the use of spatial emplacement techniques transcends simple foreground-background determinations, allowing a vast expansiveness of soundfield to be suggested.
- Alan Lockett, April 2011

from Wonderful Wooden Reasons:

orchestramaxfieldparrish's Mike Fazio is a perennial favourite around these here parts whose melancholic and symphonic sounds are a deliciously seductive tincture.
On this exquisitely presented new album Mike we see two distinct sides to his musical nature. Part One of the album is a sumptuous set of low key, bewitching and seductive droneworks (with occasional flashes of exuberance). It’s very much in the vein of the previous work I’ve discussed in these pages and it’s lovely.

Part two is a much more fragile affair. It’s music is more ephemeral. A series of ghostly images and vaporous effusions that flicker, glimmer, writhe and cavort. It’s utterly wonderful and I am drowning in it.

Always recommended.
- Ian Holloway, February 2011

from Cyclic Defrost:

According to the orchestramaxfieldparrish myspace page, this shadowy outfit reside on Green Dolphin St, US of A. Somewhere in the psychic and musical neighbourhood of Dutch outfit Dolphins Into The Future, its a glowering neighbourhood of broken street lights and steaming ventilation ducts, neglected and mournful in contrast to Lieven Martens dayglo Cetacean odyssey. orchestramaxfieldparrish main man Mike Fazio initially released Crossing Of Shadows as a limited private pressing in 2007. A New York native, Guitarist Fazio has a long and varied history of improvisation and band-driven outings reaching back until the early 1980s.

Opening track ‘Thirst (Revisitation)’ was previously available as part of the soundtrack to the DVD Caligari: An Exquisite Corpse, released by the Chain Tape Collective, of which Fazio is a member. If Crossing Of Shadows had continued in this dark ambient / isolationist vein throughout, it would be a harrowing listen, but the atmosphere gradually allows more light in over the duration of proceedings. The orchestral WHOOMPH! around three minutes in might make you jump out of your skin, as befits a movie including Caligari in the title. ‘On Nine Mile Marsh’ dynamic panning and deep sonorous ambience tell a tale of a foggy place of foreboding and dread, straight out of some Victorian potboiler. Concluding Part one, ‘Mystery by Moonlight’ summons up the spectre of late 90s Coil, more creeping bent than creeping dread. It’s also reminiscent of Cluster and the Germanic Sky axis from the late 70s; a contemplative ambience draws the listener into the sultry night.

Part two swims further towards the light with ‘Lone Star’, as subtle repeated guitar motifs and low-key manipulation allow the ambience to shine through. Gradually, pointillist washes and space-age guitar echoes overtake the piece. This is a very interesting approach to guitar driven dark ambience, reminding me of Per Henrik Svalastog’s release for the Rune Grammofon label. The following track ‘A Walk Amongst the Raindrops’ has hypnotic Chain Reaction style pulsed rhythms and enough echoic delay to maintain that ‘minimal tech’ feel. The piano interludes and Japanese spoken word interludes feel somewhat clunky when contrasted to this beguiling rhythmic base. With the whole album serving as a lament to the memory of Life With the Lions band mate Jeff Ladd, orchstramaxfieldparrish has created a worthy shrine for the remembrance of a multi-faceted life. - Oliver Laing, February 2011

from textura:

Improvised and recorded “at the Luna County Observatory and outdoors within the shadows of Hell Gate,” orchestramaxfieldparrish's Crossing Of Shadows was recorded during the summer of 2006 and subsequently released in a private pressing in summer of 2007, and now appears in a fully remastered form for public consumption. It wouldn't be stretching things too much to say that the respective characters of the recording locales are manifested by the music, given that its six dark lamentations are both ethereal and earthy. It also wouldn't be reading too much into the album's elegiac tone in noting that the album is dedicated to Jeff Ladd, a dear friend of Fazio's who co-founded Faith Strange, played with him in Life With The Lions (among many group ventures), and passed away on May 21st, 2010. As such, one could quite legitimately hear Crossing Of Shadows as a memento mori, though one whose journey might begin in darkness and despair but is finally imbued with hope. As the saying goes, from tragedy great art is born, and the principle applies here too, as Fazio transmutes the great personal pain he endured into a moving fifty-two-minute statement that could be the most personalized work he's ever produced.

There's much to admire about the new release. On presentation grounds alone, it's striking, as Fazio prepared two limited editions of the release, the deluxe version a hardcover book-bound edition (75 copies) and the other a Japanese-style mini-LP sleeve (225 copies). Part of the recording's appeal is that it sounds almost nothing like Fazio's previous orchestramaxfieldparrish recording The Silent Breath of Emptiness, Fazio's thinking being that repeating a previous release's sound is pointless. It's a more sonically expansive recording than its predecessor, for one. Whereas the earlier recording focused on a purer distillation of guitar-generated textures and tones, the new album brings into its orbit field recordings (untreated and heavily treated) and piano while it at the same time downplays the guitar's presence, at least in so far as it appears in recognizable manner. It's an album that's also best served by a surround sound playback so that the multi-dimensional distribution of its elements can be experienced. Spatial positioning in this case transcends simple foreground-background determinations; instead, entire geographical expanses are suggested by the album's material.

The album begins with the magnificently realized rumination “Thirst (Revisitation),” so named because it originally appeared as part of the soundtrack to the Caligari: An Exquisite Corpse DVD project. After first rising out of the gloom like a softly moaning spectre, the piece builds gradually in intensity, its elements filling in and spreading into the space, until a lethal metallic drone detonates with a violent clang and thereby opens the gates to a flood of spectral noises. Ethereal creaking sounds whistle until they're supplanted by a low-level rumble and crackle, with the volume level and intensity continually shifting. “On Nine Mile Marsh” then unfolds like a patient scanning of a lunar surface alien territory, after which the brooding nocturnal ambiance of “Mystery By Moonlight” appears, enhanced by the inclusion of cricket thrum and an overall sense of dreamlike calm that nevertheless contains an undercurrent of turbulence and threat. Near the end of the piece, the musical elements fade away altogether, leaving in their wake the cricket drone accompanied by the sound of footsteps trudging through the undergrowth at three in the morning.

An intentional moment of silence separates parts one and two, the gesture signalling a subtle shift in tone towards a second half that plays like a requiem of sorts, even while flickers of light seep into its material as if to posit the possibility of rebirth and hope. “A Walk Amongst The Raindrops” unfurls peacefully with the flutter of spindly textures gently prodded by a whisper-soft shuffling rhythm, and then takes a meditative turn in its second half when a speaking voice recites text in a foreign tongue and acoustic piano playing appears. Only once does the album recall the sound-world of The Silent Breath Of Emptiness, and that's in the closing piece “Lament (“The end is where we start from, a new beginning always begins with an end.” “…Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is…”),” which pairs celestial streams of guitar-generated material with piano chords—the ethereal and earthy united a final time.

There's a certifiably enigmatic quality to the album that enhances its appeal, and one of the mysteries, naturally enough, concerns the identity of the speaker in “A Walk Amongst the Raindrops” and an account of what he says (though one presumes that the speaker is Fazio, there's nothing to confirm unequivocally that it is so). This is a recording that is not only a superb addition to the orchestramaxfieldparrish discography but also a beautiful tribute that honours Ladd's memory in dignified manner.