There's something all at once glorifying and yet frightening about this new compilation of music… it's very nature, it's basis, surreal and yet hauntingly familiar to us all…

In one simple introduction, we enter into the mind of Orphee-a man, yet none so ordinary… almost mythical in nature yet he strides step for step within all of us… who've lost the desire, who still long for something, that which is elusive… evasive by its very design and threateningly close when we least expect it…

Such is the make up of Orphee and those under its heading; their music, all of these things, and many more indescribable in spite of our complex human thought processes.

"Splendour" leads us slowly under the surface with its dark and dreary beckoning, to seek what's been lost and may never be found… yet still we'll search.

Projekt's assembled a simply majestic lineup of musicians/composers-some of the finest existing new age talent and artists of the ambient realm.

Many of their own shine at the forefront-Black Tape for a Blue Girl, engulfing the moonlight with bitter darkness as

a decade old instrumentally led piece that harkens back through medieval times-hauntingly beautiful.

The wistful, "A Single White Rose," speaks gently with a melancholic presence and graceful chorus as portrayed by Human Drama…

Audra, one of the top-flight newcomers to the scene puts their emotive wanderlust on display with "You're so Pretty" from their 1998 self-titled debut…

Many other newcomers who've been quick to seal their status to that of an elite level-Judgement of Paris and "More," has this intoxicating quality to it… hypnotic in its cascading brilliance.

Amidst several others scattered through the pages of our pale history, Tones on Tail is the first to stir and their ghost from the past, "Lions," recalls the still formative years of what would become the new undercurrent for the ensuing dark wave of underground talent to follow.

Christian Death, literally limitless in their influence among the new wave of Gothic artists to follow and the stirring visions of "Mother" driven out again from "The Path of Sorrows…"

Enchanting in as much as it is compelling, Orphee is not simply a listening experience as it is a centrifugal journey in and out of life…

A gripping dream sequence of mind-altering and numbing nuances that merge past and present conditions with future passions and a heightened sense of awareness that everything is not always as it seems…

Released by Projekt Records

Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu]