It’s been five years since I reviewed Jeff Greinke’s Before Sunrise which was released on the Spotted Peccary label. I first became aware of Greinke’s music from John Diliberto’s Echoes podcast. And it just caught my ear listening to this incredible, yet ambient beauty which he took on his 2018 release based on the night skies of southern Arizona. And then I moved to other pastures to see what will come across the rivers that flow.
But for Greinke, he’s back again with more brainstorming textures. He has now expanded his Arizona roots by taking long walks in the desert, underneath the full moon that awaits him. It has the eeriness, the pin dropping textures, and mysterious atmospheres that sets up his latest release, Noctilucent. It’s a Latin term for ‘night shining’. And from rare clouds with wavy striations light, closer to the stars than any other cloud-like sky.
It draws upon the beauty of what we see during those lovely evening walks you embark on to get some fresh air. It touches upon the aspects of Bill Laswell, Klaus Schulze, Sonar & David Torn, Mike Oldfield, and the Ohr years from Tangerine Dream. You can almost dig out your old records that have been sitting in a cupboard, for a long time and put them on your record player, as it takes you to the unknown.
Greinke is no fluke. He’s very much like a composer in the realms of Tarkovsky’s right hand man, Eduard Artemyev. He had done music for his films such as the original Solaris and the unsung sci-fi classic, Stalker released in 1979. I can imagine that he watched those two films for inspiration behind the sessions he did with Noctilucent.
I just vision Jeff, walking for his evening exercises, and visioning what the future that awaits us in the 25th century. There’s the new technology that’ll await us, the moment of Orwellian’s ideas of Big Brother coming across the landscape, and what will happen if the human race will get a chance to cooperate by making a partnership with the robots and building a magnificent skyscraper across the globe to bring peace to the world.
And throughout the entire structure from start to finish, Noctilucent is the album that will stay with you, for a very, long time.
