| Unsung Stories from Lilly's Days as a Solar Astronaut is an album of ambient
music and occasionally prog rock that shows a big Robert Fripp influence. Lone
musician Jonathan Badger employs guitar, electronics and samples. First track,
"The Vessel Megalo," is one of the more rock-oriented songs on the record with
an electronic drumbeat and backwards Mellotron weaving in and out of the guitar
melodies. The skies blacken in the second half of the song into dark ambience
with an electronic drum solo.
"His Face Like Glass to the Touch" starts with classical piano and Mellotron,
joined by vocal triggers and a supersaturated guitar solo sounding like
something from Starless and Bible Black-era King Crimson. "Beat 1" is more of an
electronic pulse than a beat per se, with guitars superimposing different
rhythmic patterns on top, taking the melodies into surprising directions.
"Neurosmith" is a dreamy segue propelled by a strange creaking drumbeat that
sounds like a pirate ship in the middle of the desert.
"Her Eyes in Sunflare" is a deep, ambient track that takes you to the surface
of the sun if you close your eyes. Badger gets into chromatic piano melodies
over a slow-moving bass line on "The Insight That Comes From Repeated Time
Dilations" as the rhythm gets more and more glitchy. Final track, "Lucius,"
sounds like a digital sign-off transmission from the future, interrupted by
occasional quasar blasts before it drifts further and further into deep space.
(MT6 Records)
http://www.myspace.com/jonathanbadger | 
