Finely crafted relaxation music. Descriptive titles combined with mellow blend of sounds allows your mind to wander freely into new avenues. This is a must have and must keep CD. I never tire of listening to it! Looking forward to the next CD and the next, and....
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Each time I listen to Lawrence's CD, I find something new to appreciate in it's sensitive melodies. It's wonderful as relaxing background music, but one can only appreciate it's complexity by attentive listening.  I enjoy it very much and am looking forward to a second CD release sometime in the future!  (hint hint)
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For this listener the title of Lawrence's release invokes a pastoral image of a proper "English Tea Time" held in a proper fantasy garden. Please keep in mind that I mean that in a vintage or classic sense and not something as extreme as the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. More on par with a relaxing discourse with the woodland's Elfin inhabitants. 


This CD is, in all truth, everything that was right about the early, vintage, New Age Instrumental music without the cute, syrup like, quirky voicings of early synthesizer patches. Lawrence's finely crafted musical tapestry voicings are extremely rich and vibrant and lend soothing support to his highly melodic pieces. 


One must ponder the very nature of what I would term "Tone Poems" designed around multi-timbral melodies that wind and weave throughout each track. His music is detailed and finely crafted while at the same time retaining the heart and soul of the artist's voice within each track. One feels the playful tug of "déjà vu" in that the melodies dance fleetingly close to ones I can sense having heard as a child. Only I am sure that it is an active imagination enjoying a fanciful musical flight while sitting in an English Garden sipping Tea. The lions share of tracks feature Lawrence's "Tone Poems" voiced through a gorgeous sounding piano patch that richly defines the many moods of the melodies. All in all "Time Shadows" is a welcomed excursion into the fine art of vintage New Age Instrumental Music.
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It's hard to believe a recording so well-done (from a compositional and performance standpoint) and professionally engineered is a debut release from an artist's home studio, but that's exactly what Time Shadows is. Even allowing for the fact that Lawrence Lougheed has made a career of music (as a teacher, instrumental/choral conductor and organist), I was still impressed with this CD. The music on this album (romantic, lush, and sweeping, using piano and synthesizers) has many potential pitfalls that other artists (on their first efforts) can (and do) fall into. However, from the instant accessibility of the compositions to the extremely high quality of both sampled "real" instruments and spacier more electronic-sounding keyboards, Lawrence has paid utmost attention to the details of producing music both high in quality and also sincerely heartfelt and enjoyable from the first listen.
 

If you like the recorded works of artists like Robin Spielberg, Suzanne Ciani (from her latter period), Kevin Kern, or Benward Koch, I'd find it hard to believe you wouldn't like this disc. Mixing solo piano numbers with piano and synths and even some synth only tracks, the songs on Time Shadows are either a) dreamily slow and serenely romantic, b) spacy in that "classic" new age manner, or c) gently playful and ever-so-slightly upbeat. However, there is no schmaltz on this album that I could discern. Even when Lougheed dials up the drama, through either his use of synth strings or a louder and more forceful touch on the piano, he shows excellent taste and exercises proper restraint (lest the music cross over into histrionics or sugary-sweet cotton candy). Which is not say that Time Shadows is anything less than "pretty." Ambient music this is not, although some tracks flirt with the spacemusic genre (such as "The Dawning," one of my faves, featuring liquid-silk strings, synth-vibes, and spacy keyboard textures; or "Touch the Stars," which has a haunting feel to it, as synth bells, synth calliope, and dramatic lower washes impart a slight feeling of mystery amidst the beauty).


Some other cuts worth mentioning include the strong opener, "Shades of Mystery" (a showcase for Lougheed's biggest strength, i.e. the balancing of electronic keyboards with his expressive piano playing), "Dream Voices" (lush strings, choirs, and pillow-soft textures, drawing favorable comparisons to Liquid Mind or the more electronic side of Dean Evenson), and "Moonlit Journey" (a solo piano number that is one of the more melancholic tunes here, approaching a Tim Story-like sadness at times, although nowhere near as minimal in structure). 


When all is said and done, there isn't a true "weak" track on the CD (although I'd have put the lively synth number "Fantasy Dance" somewhere other than the last cut). Cynics may wrinkle their nose at Lawrence's unabashed romanticism, his classically-influenced piano playing, and the almost palpable positive energy on this disc, but people who enjoy traditional "new age music" or beautiful (and there's no better word to describe these melodies than that) adult contemporary music (played on piano and electronic keyboards) will delight in this new gem of a release. Recommended - and well done, Lawrence!

Review by Bill Binkelman
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