I?m guessing that ?The Gold Hooped Nature??s aesthetics lend themselves to John Davis? filmic and photographic exploits. These drones are panoramic in scope; wide-angled works, peppered with the odd soft focus shot ? snatches of earthen landscape blurred into indeterminacy. ?Queen Mab?s Chariot? is testament to this; a particularly textured work where warm, Niblockian drones meet fickle pops and grains created from uncredited sources. Impressively, ?The Gold Hooped Nature? rarely conjures the same images. Rather than simply altering the frequency to extend, Davis shapes widely varying drones ? and the keys are often in the titles. ?Blood Rust? offers an unromanticized, cavernous dirge; while ?Moral Frost? presents an expansive, glacial snapshot. But these inter-media observations are more than laboured parallels; they extend to production similarities. For example, the split-channel approach taken in ?Hudibras? demonstrates a precision in the editing room: an aqueous piece that makes perfect use of our binaural perceptions. And it?s not all pressing drones; they?re temporarily suspended for the intriguing reverse-jazz meanderings of ?Half Shadow? but also for the disappointingly flat oscillations of ?The Forlorn Bookworm?. And meanwhile the closer, ?Naumkeag?, recalls the hauntological output of The Caretaker over textbook atmospheric drone-isms of Thomas K?ner, with ghostly delay casting a phantasmic shade over the final minutes. Ultimately, ?The Gold Hooped Nature? is both a charmingly romantic and skilfully premeditated work. Undoubtedly a worthwhile addition to a cramped genre. 8/10 -- David Ainley (6 August, 2008)