TRACKLIST

1. Canyon: Split Asunder . . . . . . .6:05  2. Swallow Crystals. . . . . . . . . .5:07  3. Rooms Of The Sixteen Shimmers . . .4:28  4. All Wise Fly (Pneuma) . . . . . . .3:49  5. Shed Lustre . . . . . . . . . . . .6:27  6. A Swoon In Amber. . . . . . . . . .5:48  7. Causes Cause Causes . . . . . . . .5:53  8. Heaven Dips . . . . . . . . . . . .5:23  9. Cage Of Air . . . . . . . . . . . .3:36 10. Golden Hair . . . . . . . . . . . .5:43 11. All Wise Fly (Grapes And Bones) . .4:10 12. Gleam And Drag. . . . . . . . . . .4:44

Applying his artistic sensibilities and graphic design skills to the construction/reconstruction of sound, Russell Mills (as Undark, along with Tom Smyth) creates Pearl + Umbra, a sonic collage pieced together from the contributions of many other artists, including stellar names like Harold Budd, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Bill Laswell, and Paul Schutze.
Dark, beaty and envigorating, Canyon: split asunder swirls with energy as abstract electronics and vocal samples ooze through loosely-structured bass riffs and enthusiastic drum patterns. Swallow Crystals simmers quietly then gains power, stirred by bass, drum and surging synthsounds, only to recede again to its latent, coiled state. Enticing desolation and haze surrounds Rooms Of The sixteen Shimmers where David Sylvian's whispery vocals are heard.
From a quietly sweltering murk, All Wise Fly (Pneuma) erupts with e-growls, pounding beats and jazzy cornet blasts, all of which cycle, ripple and fluctuate before fading away. Mills, along with Smyth and Robin Guthrie wrote Shed Lustre, whose lyrics are sung by Ali Foster alongside a smooth guitar and a fuzzy rhythm. A Swoon In Amber is a chasmic void, emitting gray vapours and distant almost-musical sounds. From that fog appears ghostlike remnants of a choir, and reverberating beats, then a shift in the sonic winds brings a rising swell of lightness, which reveals hidden vocal patterns.
Poweful and sinuous bass patterns groove through Causes Cause Causes meeting with assorted digital processes and a seething spate of guitar frenzy. In Heaven Dips, Sussan Deyhim's always-welcome vocals are layered in a wordless mantra, hazily rendered over a quietly spacious backdrop of shimmer and sporadic bass wanderings. In some juxtapositional zone of gritty smoothness, Cage Of Air holds an energetic, bass-powered musical entity which explodes into wicked guitar growls and drumbeats.
Soft and flowing, Golden Hair features Clodagh Simonds vocals turning a medievalish lyric (by James Joyce) against a background of harmonium drift and assorted textural treatments, including what seems to be a faraway jet roar. Within the slur of All Wise Fly (Grapes And Bones), one hears rolling brasswaves, electronic mists, drumbeats, spattering cymbals, streams of synth and more. Lolling bassline and e-radiance surround the slightly dark instrumental Gleam And Drag to be joined by occasional guitar and self-mirroring keyboard riffs.
Like any well-executed collage, Pearl + Umbra is a multi-faceted whole of unified parts, and intriguing in both states (Mills' own artistic collagework decorates the several panels of the digipack with a decidedly rough-edged beauty).

SPOILER!

CODE Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008 EAC extraction logfile from 19. October 2008, 12:07 Russell Mills / Undark / Pearl + Umbra Used drive  : MATSHITABD-MLT UJ-220S  Adapter: 0  ID: 0 Read mode              : Secure Utilize accurate stream : Yes Defeat audio cache      : Yes Make use of C2 pointers : No Read offset correction                      : 102 Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes Delete leading and trailing silent blocks  : No Null samples used in CRC calculations      : Yes Used interface                              : Installed external ASPI interface Used output format              : User Defined Encoder Selected bitrate                : 1024 kBit/s Quality                        : High Add ID3 tag                    : No Command line compressor        : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\wavpack.exe Additional command line options : -hmxd -w "GENRE=%m" -w "DATE=%y" -w "COMMENT=Released by a-one" %s %d TOC of the extracted CD     Track |  Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector     ---------------------------------------------------------         1  |  0:00.00 |  6:05.60 |        0    |    27434          2  |  6:05.60 |  5:07.02 |    27435    |    50461          3  | 11:12.62 |  4:28.55 |    50462    |    70616          4  | 15:41.42 |  3:49.03 |    70617    |    87794          5  | 19:30.45 |  6:27.37 |    87795    |  116856          6  | 25:58.07 |  5:48.45 |    116857    |  143001          7  | 31:46.52 |  5:53.20 |    143002    |  169496          8  | 37:39.72 |  5:23.38 |    169497    |  193759          9  | 43:03.35 |  3:36.35 |    193760    |  209994        10  | 46:39.70 |  5:43.12 |    209995    |  235731        11  | 52:23.07 |  4:10.73 |    235732    |  254554        12  | 56:34.05 |  4:44.32 |    254555    |  275886  Range status and errors Selected range     Filename C:\Rips\Russell Mills ~ Undark - Pearl + Umbra.wav     Peak level 100.0 %     Range quality 100.0 %     Copy CRC A7C4D977     Copy OK No errors occurred AccurateRip summary Track  1  not present in database Track  2  not present in database Track  3  not present in database Track  4  not present in database Track  5  not present in database Track  6  not present in database Track  7  not present in database Track  8  not present in database Track  9  not present in database Track 10  not present in database Track 11  not present in database Track 12  not present in database None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database End of status report

SPOILER!

CODE REM GENRE "Abstract, Trip Hop, Ambient" REM DATE 1999 REM DISCID A80E5E0C REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb4" PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark" TITLE "Pearl + Umbra" FILE "Russell Mills ~ Undark - Pearl + Umbra.wv" WAVE   TRACK 01 AUDIO     TITLE "Canyon: Split Asunder"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 01 00:00:00   TRACK 02 AUDIO     TITLE "Swallow Crystals"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 06:04:00     INDEX 01 06:05:60   TRACK 03 AUDIO     TITLE "Rooms Of The Sixteen Shimmers"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 11:10:20     INDEX 01 11:12:62   TRACK 04 AUDIO     TITLE "All Wise Fly (Pneuma)"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 15:38:57     INDEX 01 15:41:42   TRACK 05 AUDIO     TITLE "Shed Lustre"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 19:28:60     INDEX 01 19:30:45   TRACK 06 AUDIO     TITLE "A Swoon In Amber"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 25:55:22     INDEX 01 25:58:07   TRACK 07 AUDIO     TITLE "Causes Cause Causes"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 31:43:67     INDEX 01 31:46:52   TRACK 08 AUDIO     TITLE "Heaven Dips"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 37:38:12     INDEX 01 37:39:72   TRACK 09 AUDIO     TITLE "Cage Of Air"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 43:01:50     INDEX 01 43:03:35   TRACK 10 AUDIO     TITLE "Golden Hair"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 46:36:10     INDEX 01 46:39:70   TRACK 11 AUDIO     TITLE "All Wise Fly (Grapes And Bones)"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 52:21:22     INDEX 01 52:23:07   TRACK 12 AUDIO     TITLE "Gleam And Drag"     PERFORMER "Russell Mills / Undark"     INDEX 00 56:32:20     INDEX 01 56:34:05