Solipsism - Kismet (2018)

Solipsism, aka Craig Murphy, has slowly but surely erected on the grand ‘ol ambient/electronica corner a nice little bit of sonic real estate for himself. He’s already graced the presence of labels such as txt and Databloem, collaborating with the former’s head honcho Lee Norris as Ashtoreth’s Gate and with Norris’s Nacht Plank project, and kept busy since 2006 gracing all manners of digital imprints such as Herb Recordings and Ambidextrous. On Kismet, his debut for Carpe Sonum, Murphy lets the bells ring out and flags fly; well, more like reverberate, as the album trucks in an ever-cascading audiofall of beautiful, expressionist shimmers. Murphy’s touch is exquisite, his cycling watercolors simultaneously a balm on the soul and a hair-raising trek across lonely, thin-air vistas. Rarely does ‘ambient’ music challenge the senses as well as tickle them. In that sense, Murphy manages, despite his chosen moniker, to forge stylistic connections with similarly-styled purveyors like the late Oophoi, and, more tellingly, David Parsons, whose taste for grandeur and epic scope Solipsism virtually revels in. Maximum warp music, designed for peak experience.