Entia Non aka James Mcdougall has already published quite a few releases on various labels before. His latest work called sub routine was released yesterday on Resting Bell, a label whose previously reviewed release earned rather devastating criticism by me. With that in mind, two questions were interesting: Will Entia Non surprise the world with his release? Will Resting Bell be able to restore its reputation as one of the better netlabels? The answer, so it seems, is a happy-end like “yes” in both cases. Now that we took away the tension and incentive to continue reading for our readers, let us get into more details about what can be expected:

There were some subtile changes in Entia Non’s vocabulary, as the latter has become somewhat rougher, grainier. Clicks and crackles enrich the rather static sceneries and non-sequiturs break up longer passages into smaller pieces. On the other hand there are still trademarks of ambient in it, like dense patches of mellow synthesizer tones and the endeavour of avoiding “off notes” that could cause too much unrest. Even in macro rhetoric, the most daring of the four tracks with its gloomy beginning (almost like the kind of music we usually find on Darkwinter), James seems to shy away from being too adventurous and gradually adds some minor chords to restore tonality again. Sometimes the length of the tracks does not quite keep up with the number of components a track contains, which limits the music’s degree of variation and makes its course quite predictable.

But as a whole, this is quite a decent work and despite its rather tame and handsome characteristics still interesting enough to make it a successful blend of both mainstream and more unconventional sounds and an attractive listening experience. Thus, apart from my usual quibbling about minor details, I can recommend this release for downloading and its use as background music for creative work.