The fact that »Tides« is already more than 20 years old is hard to believe when you hear it for the first time (again). But Uwe Zahn’s second album under the moniker Arovane actually came out for the first time in the year 2000 and marked a shift in his sound, away from breakbeat and rather harder IDM towards downbeat and organic, sample-based grooves. Inspired by a trip to France, during which he also made some field recordings that found their way onto the tracks like the sound of waves (»The Storm«, »Seaside«), the screeching of seagulls (»Tides«), the chirping of cicadas (»Tomorrow Morning«) or the hullabaloo on a busy beach (»Eleventh!«), Arovane crafted his laid-back rhythms mainly from samples taken from old jazz records. There are also idiosyncratic spinet and harpsichord sounds, improvised guitar melodies by Christian Kleine and the odd ambient space. What is partially reminiscent of relaxed abstract hip-hop, such as Teebs or Gold Panda went on to produce a decade later, still sounds fresh and stimulating today. But 22 years ago this really was new territory, thus making Arovane a pioneer in the field of how to transport universal sensations with electronic music. Making airy, abstract sounds intuitively tangible and thereby stimulating deeply human feelings, thoughts and memories is what »Tides« manages to do with remarkable ease, even after so long.
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