Pauline Anna Strom
Angel Tears in Sunlight
Release Date: Feb 19, 2021
Genre(s): Electronic, New Age, Avant-Garde, Experimental Ambient, Experimental Electronic, Space
Record label: RVNG Intl.
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Album Review: Angel Tears in Sunlight by Pauline Anna Strom
Exceptionally Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 4.5
The accompanying video for Equatorial Sunrise, the seventh track on this new album by Pauline Anna Strom, opens with the composer talking to her label boss Matt Werth about the events that inspired it. Blind from birth, she was not being able to see the bright and deadly hues caused by the recent bushfires, which had lit up the Bay Area where she resided, but her soft charming voice intensely describes a volcanic orange sun rising from out of the darkness, transforming the planet into something green and lush and beautiful. In the background a series of twinkling bleeps and hushed drum patterns begin their hypnotic ballet.
Based on rating 7.9/10
2021 was supposed to cement the renaissance of Pauline Anna Strom. The electronic music composer originally self-released her music in the early 1980s, though it never resonated far outside the New Age cottage industry. Her music wasn't enough to cover her rent in the San Francisco Tenderloin District, so Strom sold off all of her equipment by decade's end, becoming a Reiki master instead.
Opinion: Excellent
Photo by Aubrey Trinnaman Angel Tears in Sunlight by Pauline Anna Strom When RVNG Intl. released the compilation Trans-Millenia Music of Strom's 1980s ambient pieces in 2017, it felt like a fully formed sound world, lush in detail and with clear headed and playful ideas. This follow up, Strom's first new work in nearly 30 years, was announced just before the composer's passing in December of 2020.
'Angel Tears in Sunlight'
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