Gold Lounge - Michele Effe

Facebook provided me with the opportunity to be friends with chillout artist Michele Effe. I'm glad to help promote any artist that I think has produced great chillout music and Michele is no exception. Gold Lounge is the name of his latest project and I had a chance to check out some selections from his music on his website (www.goldloungemusic.com) and MySpace pages. His latest releases are EP's- "Earth Breathe" and "Liquid Sun."

Liquid Sun (check out video HERE) is a great ambient track. It features a bit of a dark intro featuring bass hits but begins to build nicely into a beautiful ambient track. Once the song reached it's apex, the listener is treated to a massive wall of sound produced with guitar and synth chords. Just gorgeous!

"Only a Dream" is a beautiful downtempo trance-like track. The intro is very eerie; as if the listener is drifting off to sleep and beginning their dream. A simple melody continues the dream-like state with a ghostly female voice saying "Only a Dream" A great piano part joins in during the middle of the track producing a bit of urgency and emotion. The outtro features a bit of a funky guitar part as the listener perhaps awakes realizing this great track was only but a dream.

I loved the drum track on "Close Your Eyes." It's still downtempo, but keeps a nice pace and continues to drive the track forward. I should say, however, I loved everything about this track. I immediately obeyed the sexy female voice whispering, "Close Your Eyes" and just chilled out this track. The melody is pretty simple with some two or three notes guiding the rest of the song along with strings and perhaps a lute sound in the background. The sound of strings really added to the large sound that is common in a lot of his songs.

Michele seems to favor tracks that slowly build and then produce waves of sounds on top of each other to then crash upon the listener. On his MySpace page, he mentions his sound is similar to Zero 7, Thievery Corporation, Boards of Canada, or Boozo Bajou. I think the heavy use of keyboard/computer and the arrangement of his songs are quite similar to Ulrich Schnauss. This is a good thing!

I think Michele really knows what a great chillout track is made of and he uses all of those elements in his music, which makes it truly enjoyable to listen to. I highly recommend listening to Gold Lounge!

Thanks for your friendship, Michele.

Keep chillin'

Chris

chris@chilloutscene.com

twitter.com/chilloutscene