beautiful my child

euphoria

six degrees, 2001

Mood—Calm... warm... euphoric, even!

Sample: "Silky Delta"

Thoughts— The first track, "Sweet Rain" will throw you off. The feel of this one track is completely different than the rest of the album, something I've not quite managed to get my mind around. It's a deceptive track, a single that made me want to purchase the album only to get home and feel a bit tricked.

Luckily, the rest of the album is very good, even if it wasn't what I expected. "Sweet Rain" is definitely the fastest and most "electronic" of the album, which is comprised mainly of quiet, moody acoustic tracks with electronic embelishments. Most of the album is instrumental with sampled vocal flourishes here and there. When the only true vocal track, "By The Sea" appears, it does so at the mid-point of the album. It's different enough to wake the listener up, only to bring the mood immediately back down into a meditative, flowing slide guitar in "Cactus".

The title track manages to ramp up the speed that was set forth by "Sweet Rain", but otherwise this is an even-tempered album filled with a lot of excellent acoustic instrumentation. There are two other Euphoria albums that I didn't know about until writing this, and I'm tempted to go pick them up in the near future.

Recommended? Yes.

Link—sixdegreesrecords.com

Tracklist
1. Sweet Rain
2. Little Gem
3. In The Pink
4. Runaway Monday
5. Beautiful My Child
6. Desert Drive
7. By The Sea
8. Devil May Care
9. Outside
10. 1001 Dreams
11. Silky Delta