Timeless

A 15-track overview of British electronic new age composer Robert Fox's first decade and a half as a recording artist, Timeless is aptly named: these songs are so thematically similar and consistent in terms of arrangement and structure that they could have all been recorded at the same sessions. The album opens with the sweeping bombast of "Thundering Water (Niagara)," which features orchestral instruments (possibly artfully synthesized) and Enya-like wordless vocal passages (ditto) alongside Fox's layers of keyboards. For the rest of the album, the keyboards take over more fully, underpinned by unapologetically synthetic drum tracks that occasionally flirt with world music percussion sounds or rhythms (the languid "Three Sisters" even throws in a little bird song, like some kind of new age Martin Denny), but remaining dedicated to the concept of atmospheric but entirely melody-based electronic music. Those who treasure their Vangelis records will like to make Robert Fox's acquaintance.