Devereux's "Fungicide" is approachable dark surrealism at its best.  There is a recurring ouvre to the whole CD, but each individual piece differs substantially from each other.  At turns haunting, whimsical, celebratory, and dread-filled, the music herein spans a wide emotive range, all with an underlying sense of unease and tension.  It echoes faintly of Gabriel's "Passion: Music from The Last Temptation of Christ" but in a more ambient, electronic vein.  The arrangements are complex, rather than simplistic, so this is a thinking listener's album.  You need not be familiar with author Jeff VanderMeer's writing (which inspired the music), but reading a portion of his work with this CD turned low in the background is a real treat.  The excerpt from VanderMeer's upcoming novel that is included in the liner notes helps here, and the beautiful artwork of Hawk Alfredson, along with a reading by VanderMeer himself, completes the multi-media experience.  Highly recommended for lovers of dark ambience and fans of VanderMeer's work alike.
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'Fungicide' arrived yesterday, and I have to say I'm quite impressed.  Loved the way it opens with the singing of the mysterious Grey Caps on Albumuth Blvd.  'Transformation' reminds me of the old Velvet Underground song 'Murder Mystery' in concept, while the whole album is very much like Brian Eno's quite wonderful Ambient albums. Easily the most accessible tunes are 'Uzumaki II' and 'Dradin, in Love I', but the whole album is great!  I gave it a complete first listening in the dark with the aquarium bubbling in the background; which gave an added weird texture to 'Flooded Streets'.  Now I was particularly impressed with Jeff's reading of 'The Exchange'.  I'm still haunting ebay trying to find a copy of the text, but as audio readings by authors I love like Harlan Ellison and Spider Robinson are becoming more prevelent, I hope I can look forward to more from Jeff Vandermeer!  He has a pleasant tenor voice, and outstanding delivery! 

Congratulations to Robert for quite an enjoyable musical experience and many, many thanks for providing an unique way of gaining aditional insights to Jeff's seminal CITY OF SAINTS AND MADMEN (and isn't the artwork fantastic!)
 
Looking forward to more from Robert!
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