One of the more complimentary pairings in bright, intense ambient music is the collaborative work of ambient drone artist Mathias Grassow and overtone singer Jim Cole. Their first album together, The Hollow, was a lovely mixture of Cole's overtone vocalizations with Grassow's hypnotic singing bowl and synth drones, along with a number of sparse nature samples and field recordings. The wait's been long for the follow-up, mostly due to label difficulties, but finally, three years on, we have The Last Bright Light.

This new effort is dramatically different from their previous album; the sound sources here are entirely comprised of both Cole's and Grassow's looped overtone voices. While synth is only used on one track, the sounds resemble the soaring drones heard on Grassow's recent Amplexus label releases and Cole's last two transcendent solo albums. The album begins softly with two tracks of ululating vocal drones that interweave gently. Both "The Last Bright Light" and "New Beginning" are brief, airy, tone poems, all highlighted with Cole's higher-pitched voice ethereally soaring over the basic drones. "Starlit Shadows" begins to intensify, and, to some degree, darken the atmosphere, as the drones take on not an air of menace, but of drama and intensity, much in the same mood as Cole's track "Transformations" from Godspace. The soundworld created here is spare and minimal, though no less beautiful (and, to some degree, melancholy) as a result. "Flare" is another brief, powerful track, with concentrated, churning drones and the natural ambience of the surf. Though environmental samples are used in moderation, the effect is striking, creating a psychoactive zone where earthly sounds are shown to be celestial and otherworldly. "Fell Radiance" returns to the deeper zones of "Starlit Shadows," with overtone soloing cascading over the soft drones. There's a buoyant quality to the sound here, as if its currents will lift the listener off the earth to be buffeted gently by air gusts warm and cold. Ghostly sounds wisp into the landscape, as though we have inadvertently and peacefully connected with the spirit realm. "Longing" has the feeling of ancient melancholy, reaching across time's distances--through sound, we have connected with some long-dead human's sadness, transmuted over the years, forgotten, now more reminiscent of unearthly beauty than pain or anguish. "Fusion" is perhaps the best track on the album (though I hate to play favorites)--it is also the longest track at nearly eighteen minutes, and the only track to feature synth atmospheres. These atmospheres are instantly recognizable as Grassow's, melding so cleanly with the overtone vocals that the two are difficult to discern from each other. The intensity of this track, beginning at around the three and a half minute mark, is difficult to describe. Epic is the word that comes to mind, as the synth drone falls away into an absolutely stunning vocal drone that recalls for me ancient ruins, inexplicably huge statues and architecture, beauty so bright and distant one has a hard time understanding it. I've dallied with talk like this in previous reviews of Cole's tremendous solo work--this is the real deal, a feeling absent even in most of the best of ambient music. When the natural sounds of surf filter in, the swelling, harmonic, intoxicating atmospheres represent the eternal power of ambient music--perhaps above all other musical forms of expression--in expressing the ineffable. After that, "Light Withering" almost seems anti-climactic, though no less impressive than the rest of the album. Deep and lovely tones close the album as it began: wisping, ethereal, unabashedly beautiful.

Once again, Cole and Grassow do not disappoint, presenting a vast and gorgeous album culled from "simple" sound sources. As good as The Hollow was, The Last Bright Light is far, far better. Though I certainly have no problem with ambient albums comprised solely of synthetic textures, Cole and Grassow remind that discarding the trappings of too much gear and artifice can be a wholly positive and enriching musical strategy. Ambient in the best possible way, The Last Bright Light manages to be both atmospheric and captivating--the kind of record one can spin all day, no matter what mood one might be in. It is enchanting from start to finish, and well-deserving of my highest recommendation.