13 tracks. Running time 63:13 Dan Pound is an independent musician who specialises in ambient, acoustic new age, world, and soundtrack music created in his home studio. His album Solar Nexus is one of the more intriguing works to have come my way recently. Described as shamanistic spacemusic this is unlike any spacemusic or ethnic styled album I've heard before. Though the track titles ground the themes in all things solar, the music conveys the feeling that we're experiencing it through the hallucinations of a shaman performing sacred rituals. This is done by the use of tribal rhythms, chants, and rhythms. Often these are layered so much that repeated listening sessions are needed to fully appreciate all that is going on. Listening to Solar Nexus brings to mind Steve Roach's On This Planet, partly because of the tribal motifs but more so the intensity. Whereas Roach's rhythms can feel tacked onto the spacey atmospherics and washes they are an integral part of Dan's sound. It's especially easy to lose oneself in the longest and frenetic track “Spectrum”. In this multi-layered piece thrumming notes vie with hi-hat percussion and drummed rhythms to be the most hypnotic. All the while tinkling notes, spooky washes, and animal calls add to the phantasmagoric effect. The shamanistic element is particularly strong in the track “In the Time of Helios” where chants and low growling didgeridoo conjure up images of aboriginal ceremonies round fires in the outback at night. About half the album is gentler and less intense. In “Once a Planet” slow hand beaten drums play out against various reverbing drones panning across the soundscape while the atmosphere is adorned with whistles, distant clanking sounds, and wordless chants ranging from ethereal to guttural. For me Solar Nexus is one of the hottest releases of the year; a pleasantly hallucinogenic musical trip through aspects of a star. This is a new take on a genre usually known for floating/drifting atmospheres or traditional sequencing.