Altered Zones

There's something so charming about James Ferraro's brand of electro-mash orchestration. Even when drawing from a wide palette of classical and electronic sounds, Ferraro makes complex instrumentation sound deft and light. If a composer with less of a grand vision tried to cram all of these sounds into one track it would be overwhelming and clumsy.

"Earth Minutes" is a late-album instrumental cut and the second single to appear from Ferraro's forthcoming LP for Hippos in Tanks, Far Side Virtual. Here, he's taking things to the maximum, further toeing that line between the real-world and the mediated that he loves so much to dance on-- a sample near the end actually says, "iPad!" "Minutes" builds carefully, moving from crafty synth percussion and strings to timpani to French horn to saw leads to more strings…and it all makes sense. --Dale W. Eisinger, Altered Zones via Dummy Mag

James Ferraro: "Earth Minutes"

Far Side Virtual comes out proper next Tuesday, October 25 on Hippos in Tanks