PSYCHEDELIC/SPACE-ROCK/STONER:
FIRST BAND FROM OUTER SPACE: We're Only In It For The Space Rock CD
New band from Sweden with a debut album consisting of 6 tracks in fifty-seven minutes, and here we're talking a corking mix of Gong, Hawkwind and Fairies, this time with a suitably fine production to back up the strong compositions that the band unleash. The album begins with the sound of swooshing Hawkwind/Gong style space synths above a distinctly early seventies Krautrock styled backing as chiming guitars and solid drums come moving in and the whole effect is pure early seventies Krautrock, gradually building into a steaming electric guitar riff as the rhythm section thunders, the bass pounds, the space synths soar and the guitar just flies, straight into the next track without even a pause for breath, and as sizzling a space-rock brew as you'll find - then on top of that, the song and guitar riffs add even more of a space-rock/psych flavour - stunning!! - and a near ten minute slice of steaming space-rock ensues. The seven minute 'Sometimes Going Too far' accelerates the pace and takes you on a wild space-rock ride through the heavens as the guitar leads surge, the rhythm section drives forward and the whole amazing piece is wrapped up in a sa of space synths gliding, flying and whooshing all around the mix as the mix of Krautrock and space-rock ignites. Throughout, a classic mix of swooshing space synths, phased, fuzzed and lead guitars, solid drums and an awesome sounding electric bass, the band deliver a sizzling set of steaming space-rock/psych songs, with some superb instrumental work throughout, and when the band suddenly hit overdrive, the effect is fantastic as the arrangements and playing just soar so high. The four minute track is a bit more acoustic, almost Tull-ish, but then the twenty minute 'We're Only In It For The Spacerock' takes things even higher by creating a slowly building canvas of synths flying all around the mix with booming crunching drums, mind-mincing bass and deliberate, soaring electric guitar work that builds and builds, the whole band then lurching into a sort of stoner-space rock jam that is truly thunderous, but always taken at a relatively modest pace, never actually breaking out into a mad rush. After a few minutes of deep space synths and atmospherics, the track ends with a fiery lead guitar-driven, band-played finale that really sets the seal on a truly brilliant piece of music. But that's not the end - the near eleven minute "Make Yourself Heard For The World" wraps the album up in a blaze of flute, phased synths and guitars, pounding upfront bass, crunchy drums, space-synths all around and a sea of dirty guitar riffs. When the vocals come in, you'd think you were on the good ship Hawkwind, that's for sure. A steaming, heady song with which to end the album. As space-rock psych music goes, this is one of the finest of the year to date with a production that brings out the best in the band, alongside a standard of playing that is out of this world - essential space-rock/psych listening, for sure!!!
HAWKWIND: Interstellar Overdrive (bonus CD with Pink Floyd Encyclopaedia) Book+CD
With the arrival of the new 3rd edition of the book, complete with hundreds of new facts about Pink Floyd, comes a CD that features the original two Hawkwind tracks embellished by a third and now lasting over fifteen minutes. So, the CD starts with the '98 quartet of Chadwick-Tree-Richards-Brock tearing through a rendition of Floyd's 'Interstellar Overdrive' that takes off in a blaze of glory with searing guitars swirling all around the mix, space synths swooping all over the place and the rhythm section driving it all forward, as good a six minute version that the Floyd would be pleased to see. There follows a kind of jam that echoes the rhythmic structure and improvised mid-section of 'Interstellar' and converts it into a piece that sounds like a cross between their own 'Opa Loka' and Floyd's 'On The Run' with some solid ethnic drumming from Chadwick driving a swirling mass of synths, mellotron and sizzling guitars for over five magical minutes. The final, and previously unavailable, track is bedded on a train-like rhythm with spacey synths flying on top, and an altogether more cosmic groove as the effects pan from speaker to speaker, this time with Tree's chunky bass right upfront in the mix but a decidedly more space-travel style track and just superb as the synths spread over the landscape to majestic effect. The book's fascinating - the CD's essential. Instrumental '98 era Hawkwind that's quite stunning.
HIDRIA SPACEFOLK: Live Eleven am CD
7 tracks in seventy-one minutes from the current heirs to the throne of Ozric-dom. With two lead guitarists, synths and rhythm section, this band are the business from start to finish. The live mix and sound are excellent and this is a class example of instrumental psychedelic acid-/space-rock throughout. The two lead guitarists seem to do it all - feed of each other and spur each other onto greater heights or simply play as one supernova unit, very much the equivalent of the twin lead guitars in transported to an incendiary psychedelic jamming arena. But we're also talking Hillage/Blake-style synths that add extra depth and texture to the compositions and a rhythm section that holds it all together and drives it all forward. With highly charged and dynamic glimpses of all manner of influences along the way, from Gong to Ozrics, this is a steaming live album for sure, melodic, accessible, supercharged and biting. A gem!!
MELTING EUPHORIA: From The Madness We Began CD
From 1994, for the first time on CD, the debut album from this band, together with bonus pre-band tracks from 1981. The majority of it is instrumental and revolving around synths/keys, electric bass and drums, the occasional vocals being more in the Harvey Bainbridge way of things, while the line-up can almost be viewed in the same light as the more recent Fireclan debut album, being a guitar-free brew. The more famous albums that followed this all featured electric guitar and became of a sort of psych-prog hybrid. The fact that the majority of this album is minus the guitar, does not in any way prevent it from being utterly riveting, while the mastering and production allow the music to come shining through in rock solid form. The layers and solos from the synths, predominantly, cover many atmospheric and stylistic bases while the work from the drums, percussion and electric bass is equally outstanding. The compositions all have that sense of heady psychedelia mixed in with flowing layers of synths Along the way you'll reference Hawkwind, Gong, Ozrics, Floyd and similar as distinct influences rather than any actual sound-alike, as the whole thing drives forward in a hail of swooping synths, pounding bass and drums and deliciously rich synth backdrops, over which the rest soars. The pre-album tracks from Red Gypsy Rain and Myrth consist of one song and two instrumentals, here with added electric guitar, and take on an altogether more acid-drenched space-rock hue as the whole things take off in a sort of symphonic-psych rock blaze of glory. Overall, you have to wonder why this has been a hidden secret for so long - welcome back!!
MUSIKGRUPPEN RADIOMOBEL: Gudang Garam CD
From Sweden comes a new band whose largely instrumental music inhabits a world between psychedelic and progressive that comes across as a mix of Samla Mammas Manna, Grobschnitt & Amon Duul II. With much of the lead work from electric guitar, occasional normal, phased and string synth leads also coming to the forefront, the effect is more like mid-seventies Grobschnitt in terms of dynamics and construction - witness some of the winding guitar work and dynamics of the fifteen minute epic track - while the production is of a more "psychecdelic seventies" nature. Occasional female vocal puts you in mind of a cross between Duul II's Renate & Slapp Happy's lady whose name completely escapes me, while the arrangement of the song portions is certainly nearer early, languid Duul II. Overall, if you like this sort of thing on the tasty side rather than the attacking side, then this album of primarily guitar-led, jamming-style tracks, should really hit the spot.
SPACE MIRRORS: Memories Of The Future CD
The follow-up to the groundbreaking space-rock debut album 'The Darker Side Of Art' finds keyboards/synths musician and drummer Alisa Coral reunited with the electric lead, rhythm and bass guitar talents of Michael Blackman with guest appearances from Litmus' Martin Litmus (one track), Meads Of Asphodel's Metatron (2 tracks) plus ex-Hawkwind and Starfield's Keith Kniveton (1 track), and on three tracks a vocalist, Amber.
The first thing you notice about the album, following the spacey intro, is the intensity - this is an album that takes no prisoners. Produced to sound loud to the point of explosive, this massive brew of synths, drums, bass and guitars and female vocals, strides a giant-like path through your skull as space synths swoop all around the place and this huge sounding amalgam of instrumental is positively jaw-dropping, the dirty guitar riffing allied to the soaring multi-synths and pounding rhythms, occasionally breaking it up for extra and amazing dynamic effect, the final five minutes of the twelve minute track, featuring lead guitar work that will make your hair curl as the album cruises and drives to a crushingly heavy space-rock finale. 'Travelling To The Core' pretty well begins where 'Creatures Of The Twilight' left off, with a huge sounding sea of rhythms and synths and guitar riffs, above which this incendiary lead guitar goes nuclear as this awesome solo flies out of the mix and carves a path through your head. Then, with the rhythms chugging along like a juggernaut, a synth solo ensues that allies to a world of space synths swooshing all around, and the re-entry of the lead guitar, combined with this soaring synth solo, simply takes your breath away, thundering their way through to a nine minute final point that ends considerably more sedately. 'Eternal Search' starts sedately with space synths before suddenly erupting into another ocean of synths, lead guitars, drums and bass, only this time they throw even more of the kitchen sink in, as the angelic but strong vocals from Amber enter the whole sonic soup and soar alongside the cannon fire of instrumentation that is currently whacking holes in your head. As heady a psychedelic brew and as heavy a slice of space-rock as you'll hear. The near ten minute 'Death Inc' continues the crushing assault on the senses and this time adds voice samples into the proceedings for even greater dynamic effect, this time the combination of miles upon miles of guitars, rhythms that could sear holes in diamonds at long ranger and synths that go nuclear all sounding so unbelievably overpowering that you are transfixed to the sea of space-rock fury that is being unleashed, and I promise you that, up to now and beyond, you've never heard a space-rock album as heavy as this. The rest of the album's 5 tracks feature more song-oriented tracks to add a necessary and welcome feel of a second half to what has been an awesome experience so far, the songs and instrumentation still in keeping with the intensity of the previous tracks, but the female vocals, and one male vocal track, adding an extra dimension to the proceedings. A final, bonus, track features their take on the two Hawkwind tracks 'Opa Loka' and 'Uncle Sam's On Mars', here done as a ten and a half minute medley that stomps the original and any subsequent version into the floor as the musicians and co-lead singers of Alisa & Metatron turn an insipid original into a burning track of comet proportions as the massive sound turns the Calvert menace into a big bang of epic nature and you won't find a finer version on the planet.
SPIRITS BURNING: Found In Nature CD
The third in the series, this time featuring players from Gong, University Of Errors, Spacehead, Melting Euphoria, Bionaut, Spaceship Eyes, Quiet Celebration, , King Black Acid, Goddess T, Cartoon, Mushroom. ICU, Quarkspace, Acid Mothers Temple & Netherworld. So, you have sixteen tracks across 66 minutes, each one different, each one with a different line-up, the glue that binds the project being the ever-present musician, co-composer, assembler and arranger, Don Falcone. This time round Gong's Daevid Allen plays some spectacular lead (and glissando) guitar work on seven of the album's tracks, while cohort in a previous line-up, Graham Clark, contributes his violin skills to 5 tracks, one with Allen. Tracks range from the surging guitar-driven dynamics of 'Dolmen', past the soaring violin-led 'Variable Shades Of Friendship', the solid but calming acoustic ethno-fusion resonance that is 'Oak, Elm and Spruce', with guitar, synth and flugel to the fore, the dizzy heights that is 'Ingredients, Pink Lady Lemonade, Liftoff' with an initial drums-driven intro leading to high-flying wordless vocals, synths, djembe, bass and guitars combination that is just superb and the longest track on the album at nine minutes, through 'Chiaro', a short slice of space and abstract from three keys/synth players plus guitar, bass and drums, four minutes of 'Rakasha-Loka' that manages to be five completely different styles within one remarkably cohesive track, from calm to attack, the mix of ethnic fusion and Tim Blake style synths that is five minutes of 'Blue Wings', to growling calm, King Crimson-like attack and rumbling multi-layered strangeness, all mostly led by guitars, keyboards, synths, bass, drums, percussion and effects, but always cohesive, adventurous, atmospheric, layered and overflowing with interest. The most varied of the trio to date, and in many ways quite deep, it's the sort of thing that someone with a flair for cohesive musical statements and brilliant musicianship/arranging will really sink their teeth into and find hugely rewarding.
ROCK/METAL/AOR:
FIGHT: Can't Be Bothered CD Single
After a day of reviewing and the last hour featuring more yawns than an episode of Eastenders, this happened to be the last of the pile. F*** me - I was ready to go out, tear down the road and party hard.A slice of pure pop-punk with driving guitars, dynamite rhythms and a classic female vocal that oozes the spirit of vintage UK punk from every pore. Not only all that but a three minute anthem to every teenager known to man - the sort of song that gets into you from the moment you hear it and stays there, challenging you not to play it once an hour on the hour, knowing that you'll never tire of hearing it. Guaranteed wake-up call and the life and soul of the party, this is genius. The group also add to their credentials with an acoustic second track that sounds like a UK punk answer to Avril Lavigne only this one's attitude is real, full of angst and genuine passion that comes flooding out of its strident acoustic guitars and deep bass, the female vocal so in your face and just perfect. Any justice in the world and this would be top 5 - f*** justice, buy the record!!!
SAL: Runaway CD Single
SAL: Dysfunctional CD
A new Welsh rock band but before you start thinking the obvious, this is different. Here we have the return of female-fronted pop-punk - the Darling Buds for the new millennium rock generation. The opener is a scorcher - high octane guitars and crunching drums above a searing bass line while the vocals of lead singer Cat simply fly, her voice occupying more of a mid-range holler than the high-register girlie vocals of the previous peroxide pop generation. Amid a slew of driving riffing that cuts away to a brief drop-down, then builds to a roaring sea of pop-punk rage, the yearning, angst-ridden vocals deliver the single, a sensational anthem that swirls around in your head ages after it's gone, all punchy, rocking and downright head-shaking hard-pop - this is how the charts should sound! For track three (noone supplied me with a track list here) the territory moves distinctly onto even more raging ferocity within a pop structure as the song thunders along taking you with it and the band and vocalist go supernova - superb!! So it goes - song after song of driving, anthemic, unforgettable and highly addictive pleasure. Making the likes of Lavigne and her ilk look like also-rans, this should be essential listening for anyone who thinks they know how punk-pop can sound. The rest are just playing - this is the real deal. Go buy!!
SCHITZTOME: The Art Of Dying CD
A mix of hardcore, death metal, thrash and beyond would, you think, be the perfect way to go up your own backside in a blaze of unremitting doom - but in the hands of this new band from Plymouth, with the attention they have to making it all sound like there really are three musicians and a singer delivering this potent brew, things are working out just fine. The singer has the roar of a thousand men while the guitarist can play thickly slabbed riffing that melts tungsten and at the same time play chords at the speed of light. The rhythm section takes no prisoners - brutal and fast is generally the order of the day as they drive everything forward with power and force. As a wicked way of achieving its effect, the songs here are spot on, with 10 across thirty minutes that's just about enough without overdoing things, although the desire to play and experience it all again is pretty positive. In a similar musical sphere, only Dundee's FMW have given me greater enjoyment in recent times, so this is right up there with the best of them - buy or die!!
SMASHUP: Untreatable CD
Debut album from new American band and while it's tight and hard in the rocking stakes, it's also got a phenomenal sense of structure and dynamics as the songs' arrangements take you from a wild and wicked world of post-hardcore holocaust, albeit with a steaming set of songs, to more introspective but, lyrically, no less rewarding, compositions. The vocalist is well upfront and delivers everything with a boiling passion, while the instrumental backdrops are many and varied, mostly metallic and riffing, occasionally acoustic and tender, but all produced and created with shedloads of loving care. It's all really quite different and inventive in many ways, but ultimately rewarding.
STATOBARDO: Another Education CD
Now this is different - inventive and quite unlike anyone else around right now. A good thing? Definitely!
Although overtly new millennium core, the influences at work range from pulverizing rock to an almost '80's industrial use of sampling and nineties scratching, meaning that what you have here is a furnace-heat cauldron of fiery funk-metal like you've never witnessed. There's no one thing to pin them down to any particular category and not even anything immediately obvious as a band comparison - but, suffice to say, this lot rock with a vengeance, at times throwing in the whole kitchen sink to come up with something nearer to Devin Townsend than anything and you could imagine this lot serving as a perfect support band to that lot. But, track after track provide a wealth of fierce riffing, sizzling guitars that range from chiming beauty to all-out attack, with a production and arrangement that turns the whole thing into a smoking cauldron of sound, all so perfectly evidenced on a track such as 'Under Your Control' which is just jaw-dropping and you can scarcely believe a group could put so much energy and innovation into something just short of six minutes long. But then they launch into the savagery of 'Going Crazy' with a nuclear missile strapped to them, as guitars rage, samples appear, turntables briefly twist and then it all twists only to rage once more, as the whole thing steams ahead. The vocals I should mention because they are absolutely spot on - hard, but discernible, varied but consistent and sound so right for the compositions you simply couldn't imagine anyone else doing this and succeeding. All in all, this packs the power of a jet engine, and the invention of a jet engine and the drive of a jet engine - go fly!!
SYNTH MUSIC:
BAFFO BANFI: Galaxy My Dear CD
First time on CD and lavishly packaged digi-pak edition of the debut album from this Italian synth musician who was one of Klaus Schulze's favourite musicians and went on the be signed up to Schulze's label. The album stems from 1978 and is dominated by the eighteen minute 'Goodbye My Little Star', a track that is a veritable rifle-range of sequencer rhythms above which synth leads stretch and soar, sometimes quite spacey, sometimes quite muscular, but the one thing on which your attention is always focused, is this mass of swirling, resounding, bass-heavy, beefy, resonant, spacey and positively addictive sequencer rhythms. It's like 'Ricochet' on speed, and the effect is spellbinding as this unstoppable wall of sequencers drive forward in a blaze of intense sounding glory, changing shape as they go but never quitting, on what has to be one of the ultimate sequencer tracks unleashed on the synth music world in the seventies. Elsewhere, the album opens with the near twelve minute title track, a lighter and slightly more sedate but similarly structured track to the one just mentioned, with more melodies weaving and soaring on top of the choppy rhythms, as the multi-layered synths sparkle and drive amid the undulating, cyclical and resonant sequencers swirling around underneath and powering it all skywards. The next three tracks, averaging about five and half minutes a-piece, and range from full-sounding atmospheric melodic cosmic bliss to six and a half minutes of big and beefy sequencer attack, so that the sequencers once again become the main focus of the track while assorted and more sparingly used synth leads and deep bass add to the flavours on a track that simply shines. The final track on the album is a three minute piece that previously only appeared on an Italian compilation album and is here as a "bonus" track. Overall, then, it's an album that's way better than I remembered, still sounds quite incredible to this day and, for anyone wanting big beefy sequencer-led synth music from the seventies, then this more than fits the bill.
CAN ATILLA: Concorde CD
Presumably inspired by the aeroplane around which the track titles revolve, this features 13 tracks and a wealth of variety of synth music but all firmly in keeping with what you'd call the more "European Mainland" side of synth music. There are influences afoot from many of the previous greats of synth music, but nothing so obvious that you could use it as a reference point - more glimpses of things as the journey unfolds. With tracks between three and ten minutes, you'll hear beefy sequencer-led compositions, a huge-sounding atmospheric mellotron-dominated piece, tracks revolving around delicacy, melody and slowly building dynamics, while melody and rhythm are the key factors that glue it all together on tracks that are consistent and enjoyable. I wouldn't say that this was a spellbinding album, but its consistency puts it ahead while the quality of the compositions do largely speak for themselves. If I had to, I'd say that many out there who are into the likes of Wavestar & Dyson would enjoy a good proportion, maybe all, of this album.
PAUL ELLIS: Silent Conversations CD
Taste can be a curious thing - I thought his last album was dull, dull dull. Yet this - THIS - is sheer quality from start to finish. Across 9 tracks averaging over eight minutes each, he's produced as fantastic a set of original compositions as you'll find, none of which "sound" like anyone else, all of which "sound" totally familiar and each of which is both completely different from one another and yet with a flow and cohesion that binds the album into one amazing set of tracks, not one second of which is less than 100% enjoyable.
You'll find space music, rhythmic music, evocative mixes of the two, soaring synth harmonies, magical melodies, depth, a production that's so atmospheric, layering that's crisp and sharp, and a sense of emotion that's simply glorious. You'd need - and I daresay some will - more space than I've got here to do a blow-by-blow account of each track, but it's all got that "spark" of originality that makes it a welcome addition to any synth music collection, while at the same time full of other-worldly splendours.
F.D. PROJECT: Electronic Dreams CD
The reason you never see me reviewing anything and comparing it with Jean Michel Jarre is because I've never liked the guy's work (well, not until the last couple of 2004 albums that is). Far too full of melody, sweetness and light for my liking. Well, for those who take the opposite standpoint, this CD should satisfy any cravings you have in that department, for it is choc full of fourteen songs in sixty eight minutes. Every track possesses melody, rhythm, depth and expansion, but all put together in such a way as to stretch out before the unwary listener in a sea of lazy synths and languid, solid drum/percussion rhythms. It's definitely "trad" synth music, and I can't trace any actual modern stylistic tendencies, but the dreamy effect that the melodies and rich chord structures possess is, undeniably, rather fine stuff. When the sequencer rhythms -used sparingly for even greater dramatic effect - enter proceedings it's like Jarre-meets-T Dream, no bad thing for those that like it.
THIERRY FERVANT: Univers CD
The opening six and a half minute track is a majestic piece of multi-synths scene-setting that has an almost symphonic quality to it as the layers, free of rhythm but with lots of implied melody, rise up but stay within a more melodic framework. This then leads into the three and a half minute title track where beefy sequencer lines lead the main melodies as the music drives forward. The four and a half minute 'Empyree' returns to a more majestic, rhythm-free style but with drums rolling around at the bottom of the mix as the synths swirl ahead, this time a resonant synth bass adding to the string synth symphony all of which leads directly into the sequencers and easily digestible tune that forms the three minute 'Night Ring'. The near seven minute 'Spiral' is a multi-faceted affair that features booming drums and deep bass above which a sparkling series of melodies and synth strings weaves and dances before the bombast stops and you are left with the sound of real strings for just a few seconds before the main body of the music returns once more in strength, as gorgeously symphonic a slice of electronic-acoustic music as you'll find. The four minute 'Castle Of Leaves' is another slowly symphonic and slightly spacier slice of synths music, this time slower and more evocative, less force, more emotion, while the three minute 'Animals Dance' is a simplistic but solid electronic drum rhythm above which the main synths play a sea of tunes as the dance ensues. Finally, the near five minute 'In Fine' ends things, as you might expect, in a much more full-sounding ocean of majestic symphonic synths, choirs and rolling drums.
THIERRY FERVANT: Seasons Of Life CD
A year on from the debut album - 1981 - and it's very much one of those typical early eighties styled synth music albums where you had relatively short tracks that have more melodies and tunes in them than you'd have thought possible, but wrapped up in a sea of sedate rhythms and soaring majestic strings. But here, unlike something like Peru or similar, each track is differently constructed, albeit with the same aim in mind, and it's this richness of variation that makes the music stand out. So while the music is unashamedly symphonic in many parts, the way it's arranged makes it seem more solid and altogether more cohesive than many similar albums of that era. If you like a good tune and tons of melodies wrapped up in a variety of rhythm bases from drums to sequencers, with a full-sounding, sharp and clear production, then this could be one album you've ignored for far too long.
THIERRY FERVANT: Blue Planet CD
Forward to 1984 and an even more varied album than before. Two of the tracks are songs for a start, while the other tracks seem to move between bouncily rhythmic and full of melody to sedately atmospheric - and full of melody. The tunes are what this album revolves around and if you like your synth music on the easy listening side, then this delivers by the truckload.
THIERRY FERVANT: Legends Of Avalon CD
From 1988, a concept album, this time all synths and strings, that sees the trademark mix of melodic ease, tune-laden bliss and solid rhythmic undercurrents in an altogether more full-sounding setting with the assembled string synths and choral synths adding to the effect while all around the tunes flow and drive. Some of the lead work is the more flutey synth sounding style while strings are also paramount, with many of the leads on the more high register side of things. It's all varied enough throughout, sometimes even letting the odd sequenced rhythm make an appearance, all the time trying to evoke and convey the imagery around which the music revolves. Once again, definitely on the "easy listening" side of synth music, this is all tunes and melodies, but at least played with depth and feeling.
KEN MARTIN: Spheres CD
Old tracks remixed in 2004, of which the opening twelve minutes of 'Cloudance' surprises you by being a quite slowly swirling slice of multi-textured cosmic space music with a melodic center, the latter finally winning out around the nine minute mark as the price evolves from cosmic to melodic with the faintest of bass rhythms welling up underneath as layers of string synths and choral synths back the slowly moving high-register synth lead. Cathedrals Of Neptune' is a two minute track revolving around an amorphous Gothic organ phrase as it segues directly into the ten minutes or so of 'Tranquility' and still the album carries on in cosmic mode, the occasional pulse of an implied rhythm coming from below. Here organ and string synths combine to create the lead textures, with synth swoops and twitterings welling up from below and providing extra textural accompaniment as the full-sounding drift continues. As the eleven minute title track begins with, of all things, dolphin noises (groan!!!), you finally get to hear sequencers, something that would normally count against it, instead coming as an almost blessed reliefe, and in the context of the album so far, as good as perfectly placed as they come. Admittedly on the slow side, they do nevertheless inject some necessary dynamics to the music as the synth strings, drifts and stretched out melody lines, all combine to provide a more substantial setting, mellotron sounds being the icing on the cake as a slice of slow-motion Tangerine dreaming comes into play and the track wends its merry way to the end. The eleven minute 'Blackholes' returns to the sonic sculpting/soundscaping/cosmic drifting style of things, only here with a faint rhythmic pulse that adds an extra depth to the flow of the synths that's all around. The final track, 'Rotation And Magnetism', is a combination of soundscaping, cyclical melodies and the sparest of sequencer rhythms allied to synth swoops, to provide a near eight minute and highly atmospheric finale to an equally atmospheric and surprisingly non-rhythmic album.
ROBERT RICH: Echo Of Small Things CD
Fantastic!! A space music album that takes the style into a completely different realm. The mood is dark, the drones obvious, the textures massive and the layers slowly moving - the result being a set of tracks for which atmosphere is everything, and yet the way the textural layers unfold, drift, rise, fall, drone and soar, is nothing short of incredible - with odd chords bubbling up like air -pockets onto the surface, only to disappear almost as soon as they are formed. Meanwhile the immense deep, dark drones continue as this wall of cosmic soundscaping continues ever onwards in one unbroken sea of hypnotic yet dramatically dark and exceedingly enjoyable electronic rivers of space synths sound. You would have thought that in the world of cosmic space music, it had all been said - think again!
KLAUS SCHULZE: Dune/Body Love/Miditerranean Pads 2005 Editions-Digipaks Each CD
'Dune' has now become a tale of three parts - the gorgeously twisting and sinuous turning that is the thirty minute title track, the solidly percussive electronic blipping and bouncing that is the bonus twenty three minute live track and the ever lengthy vocal ramblings courtesy of Arthur Brown that makes up most of the twenty-six minute 'Shadow Of Ignorance'. It's sort of like a travelogue through everything that wa in the musician's head at this time, and providing you're up to the huge range of variation (for a single Schulze album, that is) then it could prove a heady trip.
'Body Love', already one of the "safest" and probably most traditionally "berlin"-esque of the seventies works, with long streams of synth textures and the slowly flowing sequencers, is now enhanced even further in this respect with a previously unreleased twenty-two minute bonus track that is totally in keeping with the mood and flavour of the music on the main body of the album, so that now you have a gorgeous seventy-five minutes of music that represents one of the finest albums you could get a synth music fan, who'd never before bothered with Schulze's music, to enjoy.
'Miditerranean Pads' is probably one of the most underestimated triumphs of the "later" part of the Schulze career, mixing the majestic with the symphonic, the classical with the percussive, the cosmic with the melodic, the result being three lengthy tracks that served as much of a contemporary and quite natural follow-up to the 'X' album as anything that had previously appeared. Of course the percussion overrides the sequencers here, but that's what makes it so special - rather than just following the same style as what appeared ten years earlier, this takes the mood and textures of the legendary double and conjures up a solid, percussive dominated work of symphonic grandeur that is truly out of this world.
