Chronotope Project: Chronology
Spotted Peccary Music

With six of his ten Chronotope Project albums having appeared on Spotted Peccary Music, Jeffrey Ericson Allen has created one of the label's most impressive collections and established himself as one of its signature artists. That hardly comes as a shock when the skillset the Eugene, Oregon-based composer brings to his progressive ambient music productions is considered. His command of electronic sound design has reached a high level of refinement, and as the list of instruments he played on his latest album reveals—cello, koto, Irish whistle, shakuhachi flute, and more—the range of acoustic timbres and textures he regularly adds to his music is extensive. Factor in the distinctive sound of the Haken Continuum Fingerboard (HCF), a recurring element within his pieces, and you've got a contemporary tone painter who stands head and shoulders above others in the field.

Initiating Chronology, “Unwinding the Dream” instantly captivates with a sugar rush of synthetic sparkle, the emergence of slow-motion HCF textures amplifying the trance-inducing effect. An underlying ostinato provides a stable ground for the myriad textures to interact over, the mood peaceful despite the animation generated by the pulsing rhythm. As dense, engulfing swirls and the steel guitar-like glissandos of the HCF drift through “Solar Winds,” impressions of epic stillness crystallize. “Tonglen,” on the other hand, locates itself squarely on terra firma in draping a sorrowful shakuhachi flute solo, koto, and hand percussion across its softly glistening base. Allen's versatility is well-accounted for in the fine cello playing he contributes to “Arctic Spring,” the track originally recorded under the “Awakening” title in 1985.

His philosophical bent—explicitly shown in the references to Plato and Aristotle in track titles on 2021's Gnosis—surfaces on the new release too in the titles “Mind's I” and “Ghost in the Machine,” the former a gently shimmering oasis and the latter an imaginative riff on Cartesian dualism that pits the musings of the HCF (the mind) against the insistence of a 7/8 rhythm pattern (the body). Recalling Milan Kundera's book of the same name, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” distances itself from the other tracks in its orchestral design and quasi-classical character. Strings, organ, harp, and timpani aren't the kind of instruments one expects to hear in a Chronotope Project track, but this ballet-conceived one is no less lovely for including them.

November 2023