There is no sound with as much capability to take you on a journey beyond our mortal coil and transport you to another dimension as the delay. The shimmering, shuddering and gentle repetition is an echo of your inner-most thoughts, opening the door to an unspoken telepathy, a symbiotic experience between you and the music.
It’s a conduit for emotion like no other effect, with the power to switch from a thumping, instantaneous elaboration to an ethereal soundscape which lulls you into profound contemplation. The sound is colored, the original form morphed, reshaped and shifted into something that strikes right into the core of the listener’s being.

Delays are synonymous with ambient, smooth, relaxing compositions which tease listeners into a deep, unbreakable comfort. It turns a guitar into a haunting violin, a repeating ripple of sound against the calm liquid backdrop of the music, allowing guitarists to produce anything from the sound lapping ocean tides to the thundering pulse of continually amassing energy. In the right hands, the effect takes on a brassy, seductive, romantic tint, yet it can transform a heartfelt solo into the musical equivalent of gentle weeping over a lost love.

It’s an effect with the power to grab humanity’s attention and turn it to the stars – pushing through the mundanity of modern existence and bestowing a contemplative mood on anybody who takes it in. The sound produced by the delay stretches and warps our perception of time, bringing the past back to the forefront like a rekindled memory and opening our mind to loftier, all-encompassing thoughts.

Soon, galaxies twirl majestically through nothingness, stars flare in and out of existence and entire worlds spark into life and wither into death. You bear witness to it all – mentally journeying through the universe on a wave of pure sound.

The unnaturalness of the delay is the source of its power. Humans may be familiar with echoes, but that sort of reverberation is only the starting point for the effect – the concert hall-style echo is plucked from reality, stretched out and deformed through a cosmic audio-mangle to produce something that forces us away from our pre-determined notions of reality.

The unending fluttering, splashing and shimmering of a delay takes your mind on a journey, cushioned by soft ambience but hurtling continuously towards the black hole of unrestrained self-contemplation. It’s a wormhole to your imagination, a ripple in the fabric of space-time and a key to a door that is seldom opened. Grasp hold of the key – feeling its internal power coursing through your being and staring unflinchingly at the void of existence – and step inside.