Untie Me reviewed by Dustin Michael Experimenta Division

The most subtle of rhythms, the most subtle of melodies; at once peacefully recoiling in from itself like a delicate spider’s web blowing in the cool evening breeze - then suddenly breaking free from its earthly supports.

To elucidate the artistic measures in which Holmes Ives composes would best be explained though the capable words of an experienced poet. Then let it be so as New Zealand artist/poet Sophie Moleta pairs with the noted progressive composer (Ives), and the ensuring work eventually gives way to this full-length album entitled “Untie Me”. The album blankets the entire playing field of Sophie’s emotion, imagination, and creativity – not to say that this utterly in-depth artist has completely exhausted her soul (I doubt that could be possible). You see, this is not Sophie’s first work, nor will it be her last. Like Holmes, Sophie is no stranger to the sprawling world of electronica. Over a half-dozen full-length artistic works are credited to the artist, as well as her smash single “Love Has Come Again” being featured on several renowned compilations from Ministry of Sound, Renaissance, and more. Holmes’ testimony of works is no less noteworthy. Having produced dozens of full-length albums and smashing dance singles, his monikers Memnon, Oko Tek, HDI, and Perceptual Outer Dimensions have found their way onto labels such as Bedrock, Yoshitoshi, Release, Caffeine, Koch, Renaissance, and many more  – not to mention Holmes’ own OVA imprint in 2005.

“Untie Me” begins. The unrestrained mixture of Holmes’ ambient and beautifully filtered noise flutters about as the soft bellowing of a lone cello weeps deeply. Sophie’s own voice is then heard, slowly stumbling through thoughts and poetry in rhythmic progression with the evolving under-percussion. “…Not so easy – 12,000 miles – and the aftermath of each conversion – opening, opening, opening…”

This album cries with an absolute intensity of pain and longing – yet closing in on itself for embrace and reassurance. Selections such as “Awaken”, “Clouds”, and “Big Healing” echo with Sophie’s melodic prose, as Holmes accents each verse with dripping downtempo electronica. Both artists labor effortlessly as each composition swells with intensity, eventually succumbing to passionate stillness. The tranquility of “Hide and Seek” drones with an underlying seriousness and strength; the verse echoes of poetic eternity.

Sophie & Ives continues the journey with mirror-rippled restructurings of the previous works. The rhythmically downtempo “Untie Me (Reprise)” is an instrumental ode to the former, yet the delicate “Awaken (The Heart)” hears Sophie’s fragile words as if they were long past memories – or echoes in a dream. “Clouds (Storm Clouds)” rumbles deep within, and eventually swells into a grooving trip-break before exhausting. “Big Healing (Heal The Goddess) is an ever evolving navigation of ghostly conversations, synthetic artistry, and an evocative melody. Waving from the shoreline of this dreamlike experience is the faint murmur of Clouds (Suspended In The Air).

All of these selections play upon the other as if they were chess pieces on a gaming board, one overtaking the next until absolutely expiring themselves. By the end of the album (and I am sure this lengthy overview) the listener is exhausted – and Sophie’s vocals still echo in the mind. 

Untie Me reviewed by B. Kelly

It is very difficult for me to discuss love.  The closest I have ever come to admitting an affinity with Hollywood’s chef-d’oeuvre was when I –displaced and clumsy in an unfamiliar territory of impulsive, visceral conviction- looked wide-eyed into a stranger’s charmingly eccentric face and said ‘I never knew how unhappy I was until I danced with you.’   To which he gently replied ‘Things are so complicated…’ 

Several months later (and a few lives more wise), I was asked to write a review for Untie Me, the new album by Sophie Moleta & Holmes Ives.  (In retrospect) I find it amusing that the most jaggedly embittered writer in the office was given the task of reviewing this brave and candidly uninhibited album about the ironically uncomplicated relationship of Sophie & Ives.

They began in the winter of 2002 when Washington, DC-based composer/producer Holmes Ives (Bedrock, Yoshitoshi, Six Degrees) heard “Love Has Come Again”, a “peace warrior’s song” by Australian songstress Sophie Moleta  (Renaissance Records) in collaboration with producer Marc Mitchel.  Ives contacted Sophie to convey to her his interest in composing a remix.  They entered upon a series of conversations that soon grew increasingly affectionate.  One day, Ives was so inspired by Sophie that he composed an instrumental piece filled with effervescence and aerial violins that sound as if they are skillfully seducing some celestial enchantress in a summer night’s velveteen shadows.  He named it ‘Awaken’ and sent it to Sophie, who opened the package and promptly divined the nature of its message.  One month later, Ives received a parcel that contained the song he had sent to Sophie.  Somewhat bewildered, he put the CD in his stereo and heard Sophie’s voice threaded through his music.  “Two entities reconnected after a long time apart / who recognize once again the beauty in each other / and a new friend like a star / is born.”  she told him.  “Awaken, let it awaken.”

How does a writer avoid the trap of paltry patronization in her attempts to describe the only subject so logically elusive that it can never be guilelessly, adequately, expressed in rhetoric?  More appropriately:  how does a writer allow –with as little skepticism as possible-the validity of something to which she does not prescribe? ‘I love you’ is so often a weak attempt to clutch at an ephemeral moment.  Perhaps that is why Sophie Moleta (in that melodic murmur of hers) tells Holmes Ives in ‘Big Healing’ that she is “…amazed at the lack of judgment here / big healing / and it travels fast / …and in this / precious moment / precious gifts / Venetian glass / prayer beads / Expression healing in expression / it travels fast / …this feels like / Trust”.

And, like Sophie, as she wrote her poetry to Ives; like Ives, as he composed languid adagios for Sophie; I sat on my porch, late into the night, listening to their story progress.  Untie Me is more than just an album; it is an elegant collection of love letters—emotional revolutions and poetry inspired by a happenstance convergence punctuated by a 12,000-mile separation.  And -rather like scatterbrained skydivers who forget the importance of concentrating on their parachutes at all times- Sophie & Ives allowed themselves the bravery needed to glide fluently into the lush musical microcosm each had to offer.  After nearly a year of writing, listening, and waiting, succeeding ten months of packages sent, received, and treasured, Sophie & Ives mutually decided to ‘untie’ one another.

‘Things are so complicated…’

Aren’t they always?  Nothing is simple; nothing is free—some allowances are simply more affordable.  It is the words, the emotions, the arguments for and against restraint that align and realign themselves restlessly inside the boundaries that form rational judgment—the appearance of simultaneously rendered doubt and certainty is sure to leave even the most stalwart of stoics happily distressed.  Of course, when logic declares (in a series of elaborately clumsy avowals) its allegiance with desire, all civilities disappear and remain invisible until, yet again and as always, common sense triumphs over the wanton witchery of romance.

But, then again, perhaps this is only my experience.

And as I spend yet another autumnal 3 AM on my porch with Untie Me, I think ‘maybe there’s hope for me yet.’  Maybe broken hearts can be cared for; maybe I can learn something from the gloriously fearless, uninhibited, and simultaneously certain- of-everything-and-nothing girl I momentarily was when I looked at him.  And you know, when he said Things are so complicated,’ I knew they were, and I
wasn’t afraid.

I was chasing cliffs.

And I was not alone.  However fleeting their time together, Sophie and Ives’ lush body of work remains as an abiding, penetrative witness to their union.  Untie Me is a sensitive, sophic portrayal of love at its most intrinsic.

~B. Kelly
August 20th 2005