Artist: Salome & Ives
Title: Mystic Roya
Label: Bedrock Records
By: Simon Jones | 17 October 2002
Tracklist:

• A: Holmes Ives Mix
• B: Ives Tamas Dub

Salome & Ives "Mystic Roya"

Holmes Ives has a varied track record, producing under many guises such as Memnon on Renaissance, HDI on USR, and also as Oko Tek on Bedrock and Music Now. Now he teams up with the vocalist he worked with on Memnon's Desire, Salome for the mystical and enchanting Mystic Roya

Gorgeous atmospheric synths shimmer away as the Holmes Ives mix kicks off, floaty keys soon pierce the sounds, eastern horns pushing the beat forward as the the atmospheric sounds swirl away creatively in the background as the eastern flavour really floods through in the emotional tearjerking break, before the horns return once more to charm us once more. Probably Holmes's finest moment in a long time.

The Tamas Dub works on a slightly less disjointed and trippy percussion line which soon builds into a tribal-esque groove, taking some of the elements of the original and utilising in a slightly different darker way which whilst tightly composed and arranged doesnt manage to capture the uplifting emotion of the original.

Bedrock continue to go from strength to strength and with such releases as Emerald, Deported and Dust on the horizon from Bedrock, Debo and Porter and Pole Folder respectively, they show no signs of letting up the quality just yet.