Mark Albini is a school teacher and amateur musician originally from Herefordshire but now based in North London. A big music fan since his days as a teenager in the seventies he has maintained an enduring love of progressive rock, jazz-rock fusion and more orthodox jazz forms. He cites Pat Metheny,Yes, Mike Oldfield, Mark Isham, Joe Zawinul and Tangerine Dream as influences on this latest project.

“Music For Film” is an album length recording made at his home studio and features Albini on acoustic and electric guitars, fretted and fretless electric six string basses, keyboards ,voice (wordless) and percussion effects. The music reflects his influences and comprises of four densely layered, overdubbed pieces with a strong “soundtrack” ambience, hence his choice of title. 

Albini is not a musician in the formal sense but his long term engagement with music has given him a good grasp of the basics and he structures his pieces carefully and thoughtfully building up walls of sound courtesy of his keyboards. This is his first attempt at using string and choir settings and on the whole he succeeds admirably.

The lengthy title track opens proceedings and in true prog rock fashion contains another title “Tara, My Tara” a dedication to Albini’s young daughter. Sequencers and other effects enable him to conjure various images from tropical rain forests to deep space and in this sense the music does exactly what it says on the tin. The overall mood is ambient and although the piece unfolds subtly and constantly at fifteen minutes it is probably over-long. 

“Eastern Clouds” continues the ambient theme with washes of synthesiser and ethereal theremin type sounds. Albini then introduces a percussion loop which forms the backdrop for a soaring guitar solo which owes something to Oldfield or perhaps Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

Albini has stated that he is proud of his improvised solos on the more conventional instruments   and this is a case in point. His work on both guitar and bass (as on the early stages of the title track) is highly impressive for a self confessed “non musician”. A gentle bass and piano outro brings the evocative “Eastern Clouds” to a close. 

“Quality Time” also incorporates another title “Low Tide”. The “choir” feel is more pronounced here and gives a suitably elegiac feel to the early stages of the piece. This is followed by a pastoral “Tubular Bells” section, a keyboard solo over a jagged synthesiser pulse and more ambient murmurings.

We are transported back to the rain forest For the closing “Into Africa” where Albini summons up an ominous jungle atmosphere through the use of voice and tuned percussion effects. After passages featuring synthesisers, massed choirs and a joyous sound similar to a thumb piano (or mbira)  Albini resolves the tensions with a stratospheric guitar solo. The use of ethnic elements and the guitar tone adopted by Albini put me in mind of the criminally underrated seventies band Jade Warrior, themselves an influence on Mike Oldfield. Indeed Jade Warrior’s Jon Field played flute on “Tubular Bells”.

Albini’s album is an impressive first step into the realm of home recording. Of his named influences Tangerine Dream are the most obvious as the mood is predominately ambient and the instrumentation largely keyboard based. The episodic nature of the compositions recalls Oldfield and the guitar solos have something of his tonal qualities.

“Into Africa” and “Eastern Clouds” are arguably the most successful pieces due to their relative brevity and clear sense of imagery. The longer pieces tend to meander and the lack of solid rhythms means that the music sometimes runs the risk of becoming becalmed.

Despite it’s improvised content “Music For Film” is emphatically not a jazz record and is an album to be dipped into rather than listened to in one sitting. However fans of electronic mood music should find something to enjoy in this worthy effort. 

“Music For Film” is now available to download from iTunes.

Mark also has a myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/markalbini.

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