released July 15, 2004

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REVIEWS:

Vital Weekly:
Dave Clarkson's Illuminati project delivers some sort of concept work: "drawing together themes of life and death in using the sea as the metaphor". I never heard music by Illuminati before. Clarkson's music is mostly about ambient textures with occassional minimalist rhythmical outings, such as in the Komet inspired 'Port Of Saints'. The ambient music of Illuminati is a bit on the raw side, which makes it alltogether more interesting and the best track is 'Bouvet Oya - Frozen Island', with its vibraphone, guitar and sounds like genuine exotica track. A stand-apart piece that works well in the whole. Quite a nice work here. (FdW)

Side Line magazine:
Shame on me, but I can't remember to have ever heard of this British project before. Well, Ocean almanac is already the 4th full length of Dave Clarkson and shows an interesting concept. The album is all about themes of life and death while the sea has been used as a metaphor. That for sure explains the different sounds of water and other effects, but more than the simple element of water, Illuminati takes me by surprise showing a multitude of sounds and musical ideas. I think there is no other definition than ambient, but we all know that this style covers a wide range of influence and sub-styles. Illuminati here move from pure sound collages filled with an incredible number of bleeps (cf. Sea of glucose) to dark wafting soundtrack experiments (cf. Depending). It's not always that convincing, but this project for sure strives for innovation (DP:5/6)DP

Norman Records, UK:
8/10 from Brian (Staff) on 03 December 2006
Fancy an ambient electronic CD to take to yr Gran's on Sunday to soundtrack that yummy roast dinner & inane chatter about Harold & Iris's disabled daughter getting married to a airline pilot with one eye? Well, you could do much worse than select one of 2 (or both) offerings on Lotta Continua, a new Manchester imprint. I really struggle with this sort of thing but on initial listen there seems to be some really beautiful, beguiling & bizarre sonic structures being assembled here. Illuminati's "Ocean Almanac" offers sinister avant garde clanking, scraping & dramatic looped piano like Add N to (X) doing the incidental music to a new Doctor Who film. This leads to curious ambient stuff including a schmaltzy Pleasantville shopping mall interlude. Fats likens them to Position Normal in places. Fresh sounding that's for sure.

'...like a psychedelic Jean Michel Jarre' (Sea of Glucose) - Robert Sandall/ Mixing It BBC Radio 3


RADIO PLAY:

'Sea of Glucose' - BBC Radio 3 Mixing It - 30 July 2004

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