The Nature of Love – Inner Space (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Music can be many things. It can be high-brow and ornate; it can be transient and fashion-following. It can be the thing that gets you in the party spirit as you get ready for a night on the town; it can be something to contemplate, deep and thoughtful. It can remind us of our past and explore the future. It might be profound or profane, filled with wit, or soaked in wisdom. Whatever your needs are, there is music out there to suit them.

And, given the varied and ubiquitous nature of music, it is surprising when a new form comes along, and Inner Space, with its latest release, The Nature of Love, does offer us a new form of music. This is music as philosophy, music as a meditation process, music as soul-tugging communication, and music as an art form. It is music that asks more questions than it has answers for. Music that makes you feel, as all good music should, but also music that makes you think.

The concept here is simple and might easily be described as spoken word over ambient electronica. While that is an accurate description, it would be to miss the point. The focal point is the found sound vocals that ride along the top of the music, a deep dive into the nature of self-realization and the abandonment of the self altogether, love, and what the future might hold for each of us as individuals but also as a collective whole. For are we not as a species, as a planet even,  a collective whole, all part of one inter-connected entity?

And musically, the beguiling electronica ebbs and flows to match the poignancy of what is being said, raising up to emphasize the power of a point, holding back to let certain aspects sink in, sometimes shot through with skittering sonic shards, mainly just acting as a musical wave that the words are carried on.

You could label such music with existing tags, New Age perhaps, cinematic, certainly, ambient, film, and a host of other terms, but again, it is pointless to use existing labels for something new; perhaps it is pointless to label music at all.

So, having defined this music as undefinable, it is best just to let it do what it was intended to do. To make you relax and open your mind, to meditate on the depth of the words and ideas that flow out from the track. Pop and rock music might be great when you want something short, sharp, and shockingly transitory, something that comes and goes in a three-minute window, but Inner Space makes music that makes you think beyond that short span, perhaps resonates for days, weeks, or even years to come.

In short, the right choice of pop music might improve your evening, but here is music that could potentially change your life. Now, that is something to think about.