Christopher Alvarado
Ancient Doors
Aural Films
Street: 07.01.13
Christopher Alvarado = Vangelis + Steve Roach + Javi Canovas
There are three optimal environments for Christopher Alvarado’s newest album, Ancient Doors: the reception area of a yoga studio, a crystal shop, and exploring the rich digital worlds of MYST. Unless you are a hardcore fan of dark ambient or New Age music, the tribal beats, tinkling bells, Eastern instruments, chanting vocal samples and washes of purified synths will overshadow and overpower what are essentially some pretty sturdy drones and strikingly pretty ambient music. Given the popularity of the I Am The Center New Age compilation that recently snagged “best of” nods from a variety of trustworthy sites, is 2014 ready for New Age to crawl out of its solipsistic conversation with the universe and shopping mall spas and into the musical mainstream? I doubt it. Alvarado doesn’t have an ironic bone in his body. This is just too damn earnest for its own good. –Ryan Hall