by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Mirror System is the ambient sibling of System 7, the beat-driven electronic music project headed by husband-and-wife team Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy. The duo, who have previous as part of the famed progressive group Gong, have been working together on the project since the early 1990s, and the release of this album fits a pattern of a new Mirror System album every nine years.

As with a number of the duo’s previous albums, Route 77 is inspired by travel – and includes on its journey a couple of intriguing cover versions, Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas and Manuel Göttsching’s Sunrain.

Don Donovan adds keyboards and effects to Bocca du Lupo, while The Orb’s Alex Paterson adds extra production to Shapes Of Things and Camel Hot. Meanwhile Sonora Desert Edge (The Abyss) includes a poem by Allen Ginsberg.

What’s the music like?

Rich in incident and colourful – but ambient at the same time. Route 77 does indeed fulfil its promise to take the listener on a journey, though while it implies a coastal odyssey in America, there is a strong Eastern flavour to a good deal of the writing here.

Avenue of Lights as good as anything the duo of Hillage and Giraudy have done under this moniker, coming as it does after the intriguing Ry Cooder cover. Often there are heat-soaked promises of far-off lands, such as in Sunrain, which shimmers with a good deal of minimalist chatter. Shapes Of Things gets a great beat up and running, no doubt under the direction of Alex Paterson – but has a frisson of danger about it. These sleights of mood make the album ever more compelling, though still ambient.

Does it all work?

It does. Repeated listening brings more melodic elements to the surface, while the heady atmospherics cast a spell that will be familiar to System 7 fans.

Is it recommended?

Wholeheartedly. Hillage and Giraudy have lost none of their melodic charm in the 30 years they have been making electronic music together, and Route 77 reveals that they have just as much appetite for making new music. It’s as good as anything they’ve done.

For fans of… The Orb, Fluke, Leftfield, Eat Static, The Art of Noise

Listen & Buy

Published post no.2,360 – Tuesday 12 November 2024