After receiving this Cd and subsequently listening to it, I cannot understand the reviews. Absent from tracks was any kind beat, melody, musical instrumentation or basic talent on behalf of the artist. I can get more cohesive music from listening to the fridge hum or my blender. I own far more CD's that most folks and play them through a five figure system. The label "Kranky" is a an appropriate name for how I felt after previewing this CD.

One of the best ambient CD's I've heard in the past 10 years. Only Tim Hecker's Harmony In Ultraviolet is in the same league. Some pieces are similar to Hecker, but this work is much more minimalist than his.

The best of this type of music usually create a sense of "floating bliss." This is no exception. This is a surreal, gorgeous journey that you simply MUST take. If you come anywhere near liking this genre, you gotta get this. Worth it at any price.

If you are into ambient music and wonder how much slower the music can get while still remaining interesting, you have come to the right place. Laudanum is tincture of opium. This is music that will slow down your mental processes as if you have taken laudanum. Now, some people will find this very boring - they haven't been ear trained by other ambient music to enjoy this sort of stuff. Other people will be pleasantly surprised that there is something new in the ambient genre. Slow - moves and changes at a glacial pace, but it does move and change, in clever, unexpected ways. Imagine five minutes of music played at a tenth of its normal speed through a computer, this will give you an idea of what is going on here. I have fallen asleep many times listening to this. I have also been lulled into a very relaxing alert state which was similar to meditation. Need a quiet spot to chill in? Get this album!

I like what another reviewer has said here, which sums this CD up: "what New Age intended but could never reach". Simply put, you either will "get" this, or you won't. It's exotically spacey but goes beyond the normal ambient drone music/garden variety New Age somehow. You put this on the headphones and let it take you to other mental states, better places than your day-to-day existence. And it's quite habit-forming as well: on my first listen to the disc, I switched on the "repeat all" option on my CD player because I knew I wanted this thing to play again when it got to the last track. I will be ordering SoTL's other discs.

at first, when i listened to this, i really didn't know what to thinnk of it. it wasn't as profound as tired sounds... but wasn't guitar-heavy as the ballasted orchestra. so i basically put this record aside for a while, untill recently listening to it, and it ranks as my favorite SOTL album so far. any instruments are indistinguishable is this cd, it's just more of a "space" oriented cd, and much, much more mysterious than their other releases. so, i'd recomend other albums for SOTL if your getting into them, but once you've gotten used to them, get this.