Tom Middleton is quite possibly one of the world’s greatest chillout and deep house artists, and his artist album Lifetracks is the perfect example of this man’s incredible ability to produce the pure essence of musical brilliance. Rather than just spraying notes across a sequencer, fixing what doesn’t sound right and then running the result through a dodgy ‘one click mastering’ package, Tom has spent 9 years slowly perfecting each of the productions found on this CD.

The album represents a natural progression through Tom’s life and reflects on the major turning points that made him who he is today. Basically, you could call this album the soundtrack to his life. Each track is titled with relation to a memory, and has Tom’s photography to represent the mood of each song. There is no set tempo, no set genre, and no set mood. This is purely an evolution of Tom’s now mastered producing, recording and DJing skills. If observing the image associated with the song currently playing, you are immediately able to relate the audio with the visual, placing you in the ultimate relaxing state. The combination of good music accompanying great visuals truly allows you to enjoy the CD for what its worth, allowing Lifetracks to be one of the albums that remains in your CD stacker for years as opposed to tiring after a few weeks of listening. Each title on the album has had the perfect amount of final mastering allowing the entire disc to be enjoyed at the maximum level regardless of the sound system it’s heard on. The bass is deep and strong, the mids are mellow but not washed away, and the highs are tight and sharp without being ear piercing. Overall, this is one sonically pleasing production.

As mentioned above there is no set style for this album and it varies from the slow uplifting feeling of new creation found in the opener Prana, which has great strong percussions, a nice booming bass guitar accompanied by subtle synths & strings and a nice rolling guitar melody. This is a real uplifting “begin your day” sort of song. Then there is the more typical chillout such as seen in Serendipity that hosts gentle piano and percussions, with a gentle rolling guitar riff that keeps you hooked, but overall has the warmest feel on a cold rainy day. St Ives Bay is a true “appreciate Earth’s beauty” kind of song. There are no percussions; just strings, synth and piano all held together by a carefully played harp that gives this track a real feel of heaven.

Overall this album isn’t just written your ears; it’s created to be enjoyed by every cell inside your body. It’s a true feel good album that hits home on how precious life is, and the beauty our planet holds. Dedicated to the memory of his mother, the “pianist, designer & ballet dancer” who tragically passed away from leukemia, this album is a powerful tribute that mourns her with joy, not sorrow.