Jopy’s meditative music is a cut above a lot of the ambient / electronic music that is freely available over the internet. The three albums on his web site are lush soundscapes that flirts with the lyrical but never quite surfaces into melodies. Long drones, found sound, and barely decipherable voices all play a part in these hard to resist ambient sound waves. There are occasionally some noticeable beats as on Bojihanga’s “Piti” but even then they tend to become lost in the layers of sounds. Bojihanga is a good place to start due to the quiet and spacey vibes it sends out. I’m not sure if it is intentional but there is an eerie similarity to the Indian devotional music called Dhrupad which makes me wonder if Jopy had some spiritual motive in the creation of his music. It is certainly meditative and spiritual sounding even on the tracks like “Samadhi” which has a disquieting industrial feel.

Grasping is also quite meditative, often more drone-like. Yet it still remains complex enough to involve the active listener. The mood tends to be darker but Jopy has time for a little subtle humor in “Backyard Barbecue I”.

Third Generation Dirtfarmers is probably the bleakest of the album yet there is a touch of humanness in these tones and drones, like a warm heat struggling to escape the cold ground. I recently finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I couldn’t help thinking that this album would be good background music for the novel. There is the same combination of bleak hopelessness struggling with relentlessness hope.

All three albums will be appreciated by ambient and minimalist music fans and are available in 256kbps MP3..

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