Ancient Ocean by The Gateless Gate/Scott Lawlor

Ancient Ocean is a collaboration between versatile ambient musician Scott Lawlor and neo-Krautrock/kosmische act The Gateless Gate (or one half of it, Allister Thompson). Scott’s drones for this piece strongly suggested the ebb and flow of the ocean. However, making yet another oceanic ambient album wasn’t satisfying, so Allister came up with the concept of a primordial ocean, millions of years before the dawn of man. This opened up the door to all sorts of progressive rock influences creeping in, like Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream.

The first two tracks dive deep into the darkness of this ocean, with choral sounds and organs, as well as guitar mimicking the cries of undersea monsters, playing over Scott’s layered drones and subtle chord and tonal changes, before building up into a space-rock guitar freakout (or two). Allister dedicates his playing on these two tracks to the legendary Dave Brock of Hawkwind, the king of space-rock guitar.

“Lemurian Shores” envisions the mysterious coastal environments of a lost ancient civilization, while “The Deep Ones Call” is a tribute to the maritime mythos of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, being based particularly on imagery from the novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

The artists really enjoyed this collaboration and hope that it will be the first of many.

Acquire this album via the fine We Are All Ghosts netlabel at: https://weareallghosts.bandcamp.com/album/ancient-ocean-waag-rel071

This is the home of the psychedelic, progressive, ambient, and folk/rock music of Allister Thompson released under his own name and as The Gateless Gate, Sons of Birches, Twilight Fields, and Khan Tengri.

thegatelessgate.net
Twilight Fields
archive.org