Somewhere west of the garden of Eden you might happen upon the delightful music of Vance Sheaks. Combining new age styled acoustic guitar with strings, vocals, field recordings, and keyboards played by Darren Rogers this is easygoing but engaging new age meets ambient music. On the cover of the CD is a pretty photo of an autumn day, this suits the nature of the music which is redolent of that pleasant season when life is slowly winding down ready for another winter. Talking of the packaging, a downside is that the liner notes are written in a small handwriting font that is very difficult to decipher. Thirteen tracks adding up to nearly fifty two minutes of music make up West of Eden. Most of these are fairly short, most of them being less than five minutes long. Starting off is the short "Morning Mist", with pleasant pingy bell sounds it briefly reminded me of Jonn Serrie's Tingri. Soon afterwards the acoustic guitar starts up with a laid back melody while various effects fly here and there in the background. Wordless female vocals are occasionally heard hanging for a short time in the backdrop. The mood gets quite spiritual in the piece "Running with the wind" which begins in a hymnal manner. Gentle winds fill out the soundscape as airy synths play a hymn like melody, the combination of sounds and style at this point invite comparison to Jonn Serrie's Meditations on Sacred Hymns. Getting on for halfway through the guitar comes in to play a pretty, almost sparkling, melody. Over the course of the album the guitar is usually at the forefront, and on several tracks it comes after an initial ambient section. A good example of this is "A Gentle Summer Rain" where orchestral strings and a tender piano melody get the piece going before the guitar joins in with a touching melody. The longest track "One Night, Two Souls" uses the aforementioned order of proceedings to romantic effect. It begins with celestial voices and calmly stirring chords reflecting understated passions; later the piano and guitar take up the emotions in entwining refrains. The combination of an acoustic instrument with strings and keyboards is one that has worked well for other artists working primarily in the new age genre. In my opinion West of Eden is a winning mix of instruments and emotions, it's an album long reverie - each track telling a different story.