Despite the title, there is a nice balance of darkness and light on Tides, and perhaps like the waves of the ocean, feelings of grief can arrive and recede, replaced, if not for a while by glimmers of hope and happiness. There’s a Yin and Yang quality to Tides, with the final track even incorporating some tribal-sounding percussion, over achingly beautiful pads and chords, suggestive of a hopeful human soul searching for something better as it plods along through this thing we call life.

Night and Day could be an appropriate alternative title to Growth, as the first long form ambient track (Pt 1) sounds like the dawning of a new day, as the dew on the grass evaporates and sunlight begins to pierce through the branches of the trees. Pt 2, however, with its subtly twinkling piano keys and darker tones, is suggestive of an evening sky making way for the arrival of the moon and stars, as nocturnal creatures both big and small come out from hiding. Highly recommended!

This album can easily work as the soundtrack to a movie with a theme revolving around loss and longing. The tracks are neither sad or happy in mood or tone, but exist somewhere in between the two states of emotion. There’s an almost cinematic quality to the album, with string-like chords floating about and hovering somewhere in the ether, making for an exquisitely deep listening experience.

There’s an almost retro sci-fi feel throughout this one, and in some ways reminiscent of earlier AFX tracks, in the simple yet highly effective interplay of mechanized electronic rhythms and deep atmospherics. I can imagine Paul Klee’s Twittering Machine making music, or AI robots colonizing a distant planet, busy at work setting up a new civilization. Despite the mechanical sounds, this is a highly listenable album with many moments of beauty and light, and works well while reading or writi

Two long form ambient gliders from the master of chill. Both tracks work like brother and sister versions of themselves, with slight variations on sound and composition, making for a smooth and soothing aural magic carpet ride across a minimalist musical palette of gently dancing, optimistic piano key passages anchored by slowly unfolding and stretching notes from the deeper end of the spectrum, and a consistent rhythmic tone that flashes slowly like a beam from a lighthouse across the sea.