CD Review

Daniel Patrick Quinn & Beano Jameson - "Suilven007"

By Marcus Pan

As the waves wash over your toes on the far off Irish shore, the dirge of drunken bagpipes float down the beach from somewhere unknown. The smell of the ocean permeates Dunstanburgh Castle, your first stop on this short four track promo EP from instrumental collaborators Daniel Patrick Quinn and Beano Jameson. This particular track, please note, was Daniel's solo work.

Strings have become a thing of the past in modern music today, but sometimes there's a refusal to lay down that heavy wooden and pleasantly shaped cello or violin. And while Quinn and Jameson use synths in some areas, the heady old world flavor exists to take a strong hold. And while typically pleasant, the duo can drag it out some such as the nearly 5 minutes of The Sun Rises which just drones along without much of a direction to find itself heading in.

Death on the Ridge Road sounds very unlike death, and is unfortunately more of the previous track with a higher octave. And some extremely minimal tribal beats. Admittedly there's a bit more lines to it for harmony, but it's still...droning synthetic chord washes with no place to hang out. And the final track four doesn't do much either.

Ambient is supposed to take you someplace. I won't begrudge Quinn's & Jameson's ability as far as musicianship goes, but Suilven007 doesn't seem to go anywhere, just flounders about and drones.