Innertones contains three Spectral Voices pieces recorded in a vast, reverberant water tower (like on their debut Coalescence and follow up Sky) and 3 more recent group and solo recordings from the Gathering Room.

"...the sound of a very personal gnosis, the kind of spiritual leavening that, once glimpsed into, reveals itself to be deep and vast....These Innertones capture a sense of the eternal, somehow, as only the best of ambient music can. This stolen glimpse into an oceanic landscape, foreign and seductive and familiar, is a place that we will never truly know in its entirety....I think you’ll find that these ghostly inner journeys are no less sweet in spite of their tantalizing ephemerality."  

        ~ Brian Bieniowski - Innertones liner notes

Some reviews of Innertones:

It is amazing to realize that all the sounds on this CD were created with the human voice. You'd swear you are hearing a full symphony of electronic instruments and choirs, but yet it is indeed the hidden power of this singular voice as revealed by Cole (and on four pieces two other singers join him). Innertones is the sublime soundtrack music of our time, perfect for quiet contemplation, meditation, artistic inspiration, and trips to the stars.

      ~ Christopher Cameron, former radio host "Music of the Spheres" and electronic composer

Jim Cole + Spectral Voices create intimate Ambient Music by the simplest means. Using only their voices and both natural reverberation and a few electronic effects, this ensemble produces powerful soundscapes drawn from a deep interior silence. The CD Innertones (71'14") compiles six pieces from various points in the evolution of this unique vocal group. Every track has its own character and energy. From joyous and celebratory to minimalistic and ceremonial, Innertones aspires to the highest levels of human expression....Waves of sound resonate beyond the individual parts to create voice-filled ethereal sound structures. Both chilling and glorious, the whistling overtones that characterize this singing style magically materialize in the swirling atmosphere above the sustaining bass and mid-range lines. A fragile apparitional sound, this mystical second tone above the root note comes from just one singer - and provides a deeply profound listening experience. 

                       ~ Chuck van Zyl, STAR'S END

...music that peacefully and completely surrounds and envelops you. From the first soft note there is an air of sanctity and sanctuary, and that feeling pervades the entire disk....Between the pitch-perfect harmonies, the graceful pace of the songs, the intriguing textures of polyphonic singing, and the natural resonance and sustain of the water tower, Innertones develops, across its course, into something akin to a meditative mass for the ambient believers....While there are six distinct pieces here, Innertones is a singular experience that needs to considered in its peaceful entirety.  Innertones is a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD. 

~ John Shanahan, Hypnogogue

Every remarkable sound on the 70+ minute continuous piece is sourced by his voice. Quiet, calming, and meditative; deeply textured and sublime. Achingly poignant.

~ Bill Beck, Spacemusic group list

Emotionally charged, meditative and just beautiful. Also the pace of the album is just perfect, moving from dense to open space with just the right amount of beauty, tension and emotion.

~ vidnaObmana

....While each cut on the disc has a separate mood or tone, The Way Beyond must be considered as a massive, undulating, living, breathing ambient zone of stillness and, unusually, simultaneous constant change and transition. While the basis of this recording is layered drones comprised solely from Cole's harmonic singing, these layers are overlapped with constantly changing sonic waves and patterns which create the feeling of watching a rushing brook; all motion and churning fluid on top, but a deep, peaceful stillness beneath.

....the deep tones of Cole's voice expand and contract in an almost psychedelic flux, as if one is buffeted upon solar winds....This is inner space music in the highest sense of the term.

This wordless music, without connotation, has the power to unearth nameless spiritual delight within. There is no question--The Way Beyond is holy music, no matter what your persuasion--it is ageless, and always a valid and enriching experience....This disc goes “way beyond” Godspace, and that's really saying something. The Way Beyond gets my highest recommendation: it's paradigm shattering work by one of the brightest lights in today's ambient scene.

~ Brian Bieniowski, The Ambient Review

...improvisations that sound very modal and harmonious yet completely different from normal western harmony. As a result, the music seems to transport us to a shimmering, yet stable place. Meanwhile, the drones over which he is improvising continue to shift and build, a very orchestral effect. At times they fade or even disappear completely, always to return to great effect.

~ Mark Morton,  Ambient Visions

Jim employs a stunning array of sounds, such as walls of synthesizers, didgeridoo, flutes, accordion, cello, vocal choirs, and many heavenly sounds the listener has never heard before. The amazing thing is all of these sounds are performed...with only his voice, using reverb and looping, "live on the fly"!

....There are deep drones and soaring, sustained notes that conjure up primal feelings of wonder and awe....The performances are spellbinding and the sound quality is excellent. This is music that enriches and replenishes the spirit....this is a great disc for meditation, contemplation, yoga or inner journeys!  
                                ~ Dodds Wiley, Ambient.us

Imagine a very beautiful and haunting sound, filled with voices and echoes overlaying and blending, bending, growing and decaying, drifting freely in some inner or outer space, and one might have some insight as to where Godspace and The Way Beyond are musically situated. This is spiritual ambient drone music of the highest order....intensely beautiful and mystifying sonic edifices that are at once hypnotic, soothing and transcendent.
                                       ~ Peter Thelen, Exposé

                                      ~ Steve Roach

 Every now and then a little known album will crawl out from underneath more famous artists and scream for attention.  This CD is Coalescence by Jim Cole and Spectral Voices....amazing improvised compositions by voice alone.   This is one heck of an ethereal album.

~ Allan Bogle (WEVL), "Ambient Spectrum," NAV

This is music that touches something primal....not to be missed by anyone who sees music (and especially the human voice) as a vehicle for expressing something beyond the here and now.  A truly transcendental experience.

                              ~ Bill Binkelman, Wind and Wire
 

A decidedly original and fascinating album.  Coalescence is unique in both its conception and execution....The outcome is a highly spiritual, mystical ambience

   ~ Jeff Johansen (WJCU) New Age Voice

Coalescence is unique, sublime, extraordinary and beautiful....The angelic, dream-like presence captured by this recording makes listening to Coalescence an experience that relaxes the mind and body, as it feeds the imagination.

~ M. Jeffrey Schmidt, Massage Magazine

* "Light Shines in your Heart" is dedicated to my daughter Emily, who at 4 gave me a pendant she made of paper, tiny seashells, sequins, rainbow marker colors and such.  She had sensed I was feeling blue one night, so she handed me her treasure.  I asked her what it was and she replied: "It's a wishing thing: when you wish for things light shines in your heart, so you know I'm with you."  I wore it that night and have worn it many times since.

...["Astral"] unfolds so gradually in wave after wave of beauty and bliss.  The music is like slowly and effortlessly gliding over a rolling landscape with the glow of soft purple light from a setting sun bathing you and the land below.

...color me impressed, blown-away, and mystified.

                              ~ Bill Binkelman, Wind and Wire

        ...some of the most superlative ambient music I've ever heard.  It is a work of staggering beauty and nuance, at once improvisational and composed.

        This disc has such an emotional and spiritual resonance for me; it is as if Cole had tapped into my biorhythms for 74 minutes, occupying my thoughts, and impregnating all activity around me with meaning where before there seemed to be none.

        This is timeless, important music, and I give it my highest recommendation.

                  ~ Brian Bieniowski, The Ambient Review

...Spacious, floating, and ethereal, the combined human voices seem to stretch out and envelop everything, blanketing it in a layer of billowy softness. The wonder and awe of "Kyrie Eleison," the "I swear this is a synthesizer" effects on "Passion" and the blissful ambient-like "Uplifting" are songs that should send fans of electronic ambient music into a state of rapture....That it's human voices making these celestial sounds never fails to astonish me.  

     ~ Bill Binkelman, Wind and Wire

Lush, diffuse choral strands rise and fall with Kyrie Eleison's continually surging vocal drifts. Ever-expanding layers seem to trace a distant, gently meandering shoreline in human-powered tones that no synthesizer could hope to mimic.

~David Opdyke, Ambientrance

... a sound extreme in both beauty and emotional character....Sky will have the listener returning many times, attempting to both re-enter the zone this music puts one in and quantify an immeasurable factor that borders on the mystical.

                  ~ Chuck van Zyl, STAR'S END