Continuum - Space Time

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Space Time is Continuum's 4th album, recorded at the same session as their Yttrium album. The music was a continuous 48minute improvisation and the band decided they wanted to keep it in it's entirety.

It threads organically from a mellow ambient openeing, to some free jazz, before going into a Terry Riley-esque minimal organ section, before settling down to a spacey ambeint section. Out of this, like the sun rising, there is a piano ECM styled atmospheric ending which grows to a dramatic climax before a stunning exit as strange spacey sound arrive again at the close.

This was such an organic piece with fascinating trasitions between the sections it was great to release it on it's own right - a real tribute to Continuum's inventiveness and level of interplay.

**UPDATE June 2021 - The CD is seamless but has 7 track markers. On Bandcamp now, it is just 1 seamless track. On Spotify it is 7 tracks but they seem to run seamlessly.

continuum
Chris Conway paints pictures with his theremin, and with the help of mountains of delays and effects he moves from wild screams to subtle chordal soundscapes which blend with his low Irish whsilte and vocal effects to produce a rich deep layered sound. He has worked with a strangely diverse set of musicians including Talvin Singh, Peter Tork (Monkees), improviser Derek Bailey, Martin Barre (Jethro Tull), composer Gavin Bryars, violin masetro Dr L Subramanium, ECM saxman Martin Speake, and Brazilain jazz diva Ithamara Koorax.

Simon Styring's guitar style comes out of Robert Fripp, blending his sustainiac-loaded guitar with guitar synthesizer and effects in intriguing ways. From sustained Frippatronics to splintered Metheny-like free jazz guitar.

John Runcie is a superbly impressionistic jazz drummer in the mould of ECM label regular Jon Christensen. He has worked with Lee Konitz, John Surman and Barbara Thompson to name a few. His restless creativity abounds, and his subtlety is evident, interacting one minute, and driving the band the next.

Together they create so many sound combinations as they veer from space sounds to ambient electronica, free jazz to minimal patterns. Out on the edge - not always tonal but with atonality on the brink of breaking out. And vice versa…

influences
Terje Rypdal, Robert Rich, Terry Riley, Simon Stockhausen, Barbara Buchholz, Robert Fripp, Jon Christensen