Search - Open Canvas :: Indumani

Open Canvas is the recording side project of Gregory Kyryluk, who's usually found under his ambient guise of Alpha Wave Movement (AWM). Kyryluk creates inventive soundscapes inspired by 1970s space music, but with a decidedly modern ambient edge. As Open Canvas, he traverses Asian terrain, trawling the rhythms of the Middle East and the melodies and sounds of India. There's a sense of unintentional déjà vu here, and we have indeed all been here before. Deploying what sounds like stock Eastern samples and loops, Open Canvas orchestrates an ethno-techno faux exotica. Tracks like "Puja," with its surging rhythm and whining melody, illustrate the potential of Open Canvas's world, but other pieces, including "Liquid Shiva" and "Prana," resort to the most abused Asian cliches. You can't just slap on a pentatonic scale, pluck a sampled tamboura, and put a dance beat behind it anymore. But Open Canvas does have an ear for the pulsing groove and a nicely turned ambience, and he doesn't take it all too seriously, as the techno-wink of pieces like "Electric Karma" reveal. In the ambient spaces of Alpha Wave Movement, Kyryluk is a tour guide. As Open Canvas, he's a tourist, albeit one with a very good camera. --John Diliberto