February 21, 2021 on RateYourMusic.
Release: Voyage (Calum Bowen, 2021)
Voyage is a pleasant, sentimental little album, where we see Calum Bowen's usually springy, playful style subdued, distilled (mostly) into melancholic, classical-influenced ambient. It's different from everything else the British video game composer and experimental pop artist (you may know him as bo en) has done so far, and the result is comfortable, solid.
The tracks that are largely divorced from his usual style are good! They're pretty and atmospheric and just... nice. But then there are the special moments of this album, the tracks where his signature eclectic, curious sound palette and that very specific kind of string-playing slips in. And that's what excites me most about this work -- getting to hear Bowen's singular sound being used in such a different context, doing such different work, and finding that it's still beautiful.