Beneath the Radiant Stars

"The tonal substance of The Shimmering Land (60'10") is made using synthesizers. On her sixth album Electronic Musician Meg Bowles realizes an atmosphere of ageless quiet, with six dreamy ambient tracks energizing in a unique way. From a lost, haunted and deeply affecting melancholy, to a bright and hopeful radiance, The Shimmering Land provides lasting reverberations. Enigmatic and limitless, her work is about texture, and moves in waves. A noted development in Bowles' music is the inclusion of the occasional slow sequencer pattern which produces a measured motion akin to flow. This addition provides a wonderful sense of gentle propulsion, which moves us along a pleasant compositional arc - to beautiful sonic states. As Bowles charts the inner map her restrained poetic minimalism enters a still subtle place. A typical listening experience involves an ethereal slow dance of tones, simply and eloquently rising and receding in long lines of diverging electronic pads. Deep bass notes expand beneath rounded synth-strings - surfacing, touching, and then brightening. Between the two float quietly plucked blips moving at an unhurried pace. Each track is distinctively evocative - a tender montage leading the listener quietly into the night. Over the decades this music has become more sophisticated, and so has its listeners. Easy to label, hard to define, The Shimmering Land is not trying to reinvent New Age or Spacemusic, it is an attempt to make this kind of music as good as it can be." -- Chuck van Zyl, Star's End, 25 July 2013

"The Shimmering Land is a 60-minute collection of lush and highly emotive ambient space music, smoothly morphing through tender, soft resonating spaces. The outcome is ambient/orchestral, but still differentiates from the works of e.g. Altus or Jonn Serrie. Meg’s delicately-crafted and subtle melodic creations leave a sense of calm and introspection as it moves forward in a classical framework while leaving tender sonic footprints. Opener "Undulant Sea" is already a straight winner with its beautiful rise-and-fall of drifting textures. The six carefully molded cinematic and evocative sound paintings feature profound dreamy, fairy-tale undercurrents that lead the listener into deep cosmic spaces beyond. All together it forms a fascinating and magical aerial ride, featuring slow chord changes and most subtle composition structures offering wondrous vistas that keep shifting and playing before the mind’s eye. The pastoral-flavored "The Shimmering Land" merges the ancient, the unknown and the mystical in a beautiful immersive manner, at times sonically linking to the in-depth music of Max Corbacho, Thom Brennan or Jon Jenkins. This soft glowing ambient travelogue is highly recommended." -- Bert Strolenberg, Sonic Immersion, 23 July 2013