14 tracks. Running time 68:28 Dwight Ashley is known for his expressionist ambient works. Parts of his latest album Ataxia were written in New Orleans before hurricane Katrina hit, and some influence of that event can be detected on a few tracks. This is the first of Dwight's solo albums that I've heard, but I believe that the abstract and kind of post-industrial elements apparently encountered on his previous albums can be found here too. There's an oppressive sonic aura in many of the tracks. In “When the Waters Came” various hot and harsh drones intermingle before a mechanical glooping effect adds a sense of penetrating water rendered at an abstract level. Then in “Black Swamp, Bright Sun” unsettling drones and refrains take the listener to a realm that could be anywhere one's mind interprets it to be. The word Ataxia means “Inability to coordinate voluntary muscle movement; unsteady movements and gait”. This is a good choice of title for the album since much of the music has an odd quality of trying to resolve into something but not quite getting there. Indeed, the use of distorted and treated found sounds adds a dreamlike illusive aspect where events are followed rather than created. A curiosity with the album is that though only twelve are listed on the digipak there are actually fourteen. The thirteenth is six seconds of silence, and the final is a “hidden” track consisting of a haunting slow melody played on piano with a resonance as though a piano sits in an empty high ceiling room and the listener is peeking through an ajar door. Ataxia is similar to Dwight's collaborative work with Tim Story in that it's not the easiest music to listen to but perseverance is worth the effort. It's an album that appeals more to the intellect than the emotions.