AMBIENT/TRANCE/TECHNO, etc:
ELUVIUM: Talk Amongst The Trees CD
With one of the most simple yet evocative covers that so reflects the musical content, this is one amazing album of textural drones, flowing amorphous soundscapes, deep rumbling canyons of sonic sculpting and nearly an hour of pure ambient bliss like you've rarely heard. Apart from passages that actually sound like processed guitar textures, I have absolutely no idea how and on what instruments these soundscape were produced. It all sounds very electronic but it's not synth music, it could be guitars but it's not guitar music, so the mystery remains. However, regardless of what has produced these tracks, this is ambient drone music of an unparalleled quality, constructed so perfectly that you become completely enveloped in its huge canvas of slowly flowing rivers of sound. It's dense but not impenetrable, intense yet effortless, multi-textured and never standing still. Above all, it's a tapestry of sounds that draws you in, full of emotion, almost asking you to immerse your own emotions in its flowing rivers of sound and meet at a point in time that's out of body and out of mind, a spiritual experience in music like no other. From the opening ten minute of 'New Animals From The Air', you are hooked - a piece that's so amazingly full of emotion for a multi-layered drone track yet you immediately lose yourself to it, become wrapped up in its soundscapes and dive into its density with an effect that's surprisingly refreshing. From there you just allow the rest of the album to take you over, slowly but surely, as you find yourself unable and unwilling to break away until the whole experience is complete, your mind, soul and body somehow enriched as a result. Simply stunning, this is one of the finest ambient drone music albums on the planet.
GATE ZERO: Schwerelos CD
Well, there are 14 tracks between one and eight minutes in length, it's on the ever consistent Fax label and it's pretty darned chilled out - in fact it's so chilled out, you'll be positively horizontal by the time it's finished. That said, it's also rhythmic - most of the time it's rhythmic - but the nearest you get to leaping around the room is a mild toe-tapping to the three minutes of 'Eiskristall' where as many of the rest take on a kind of smoky ambience, often melodic, sometimes more late night, utilising a neat mix of keyboards, synths, delicate electronic drums and deep lazy bass, the occasional guitar figure raising its head above the ground before settling down once more under its sombrero until the next time it's called. Most of it is chilled out and chunky - sort of downtempo with as much down as tempo - and yet it's got that soaring, relaxing, stretched out feel that makes it the sort of music that's the equivalent of a rain shower on a hot summer's day. Gorgeous stuff if you like this sort of thing.
MOVE D/PETE NAMLOOK: VIII - The Art of Love CD
Yes, shock horror, the Fax label is still going strong - well, still going anyway. No, seriously, this is a return to form as far as I'm concerned, as an album with three tracks around the twelve minute mark, a massive twenty four minute track and a couple of shorter ones, unfolds to surprisingly hypnotic and pleasurable degree. Don't be fooled by the intro to the title track as a muted almost Miles Davis-esque trumpet, weaves in and out of the mix as gentle electronic waves masquerade as cascading rhythms and echoed space soundscapes, the whole mix slowly flowing on its languid eleven minute path, all very relaxed and dreamy. For the eleven minute 'One After 303' things change, as you might have expected, with a much more powerful sea of synths and thudding beats, as phased sequencers dive all around the mix, strings come in and out, layers are added and the whole train-ride shudders along. But in the middle of all this comes a beautiful piano-like melody that comes and goes as the rhythms are enriched with more percussive layers and the synth surrounds simply soar all around the rhythmic undercurrents. A short synth soundscaping piece leads us into the twelve minute 'Dial Again' which is a much more cosmic piece but eventually adds shuffling electro-percussive beats to the space synth universe as the track slowly adds more layers and sounds and samples, building but always relaxed and never breaking out of its languid, hypnotic groove. 'Kool Train Intro' is a five minute slice of space synth magic that's warm and deep, as it leads into the twenty four minute 'Kool Train Riding The Desert', an epic piece that features slowly running deep rivers of electronic bass, ethereal and dark, minimal yet warm synth backdrops and this gorgeous almost Soft Machine-esque synthesized sax lead that flows gently above the background. This whole soundscape carries on to the fifteen minute point, gradually and subtly changing shape as it goes, whereupon a solid but light electro-percussive rhythm is added, the presence of cosmic almost electric piano-like melodies is heard in the distance as an electronic drone appears then stops, and the sax refrain returns. This whole soundscape now shuffles merrily along to the twenty minute point, whereupon the sax disappears and the sound of string synths, solely floating cosmic synths and assorted textures all resound above the shuffling rhythms below, taking the track to a slowly fading end.
MOVE D/PETE NAMLOOK: IX - Wagons-Lits CD
For those of you that aren't train-spotters, let me tell you that the title refers to the French rail system of overnight trains. With 5 tracks, between five and twenty minutes, of which the middle three run as a continuous thirty seven minute piece, I can definitely say that I wouldn't like to be stuck on an overnight train with these two! Anyone expecting a kind of happy, smiley chilled-out version of 'Trans Europ Express' would be in for a surprise as the opening five minute track lulls you into a sense of bliss before the thirty seven minutes of music that follow, herald low-down rhythms, eerie melodies and an air of gloom as you head out into the night. Odd part is, as with most rail journeys of a similarly long nature, it's all so spellbindingly hypnotic as you are glued to this ensuing scenario as the train winds its slow and menacing way through the territory, laving you wondering what on earth you're going to encounter as the journey unfolds around the towns and industrial estates - all quite amazing as you sit there fascinated, largely because that's all there is to do. For the final twenty minute track, the train heads out into open ground, gathers pace and what follows is a most magnificent (musical) journey as the electro-percussive train-rhythms lay the foundations for some seriously stretched-out synth layers and expanding melodies that take place on top, around and all over the heartland rhythms of the piece. It's one of the finest Namlook tracks for ages and worth the price of the CD on its own. That said, it's a rather amazing, different and engaging album from start to finish, but that last track is sensational - get it and you'll see!
STEVE STOLL: Exiled CD
I wouldn't be surprised if, after the not exactly easy listening previous album, that you took one look at the title and exclaimed "yes, he should be" but stick with this and you'll find yet another side to the bloke - or rather 13 of the things. So, what connects it all - rhythm, that's what. How do you classify it - well, try "downtempo techno ambient-house music" and see where that gets you. The extraordinary part is just how easily digestible it all is - there are rhythms that range from slow-ish to energetic, tons of melodies all over the place, loads of synth and electronic layers filling out the sound and just generally a solid set of five minute average length compositions that are varied and consistent, inventive enough to stand out, normal enough to be enjoyable. That's about all I have to say on the matter - to be discovered, I guess.
FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY & FRIENDS: The Best Of Cryogenic Studio DBL CD
This fantastic value double CD provides nearly all of the original 'Cryogenic Studio Vol 1' album with selected highlights from the second volume, all making for one immense and brilliant double, showcasing Leeb & Fulber's many bands and simply stunning music.
Originally, I did this massive and detailed review for 'Vol 1', but decided 'what the hell' and instead pruned it down to this:
This album has no bad tracks. It is made up of lots of synths and electronic drum/rhythms, it is more the industrial end of the synth market in terms of the dynamics of the rhythms and the power of the melodies and yet it is a roaring cauldron of steaming music for all but the last track where it mellows down and builds to a climax. The album represents a set of unreleased tracks from a quintet of groups connected by the musical genius of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber, in this case Equinox, Frontline Assembly, Pro-Tech, Delerium and Synaesthesia. It's an all instrumental offering, save a few barely audible bits in one of the FLA tracks, and if you like the music of any one of the bands on the CD, you are sure to like the rest as long as you like it dynamic and smokin'. The Synaesthesia track is the last one and uses undulating bass, string synths and cascading lead synths with a brilliant atmosphere to the layers that unfold. The rest feature loads of great rhythms, layer upon layer of synths and electronics and a massive sound that you just can't help but enjoy. Overall, an utterly fantastic album.
Then, 'Vol 2' came along and I reviewed it thus - the glue that binds all these bands is the guiding hand and musicianship/compositional genius that is Bill Leeb who, together with cohorts Fulber & Paterson, have created six synth-based groups that inhabit an electronic territory that will appeal to the sequencer brigade in the synth markets, the rhythmic factions in the ambient territories and the melodic armies of the industrial movement. All the tracks feature layer upon layer of synths and electronics, electronic and sampled drums/percussion, with some of the fullest sounding, flowing synth music around, each possessing the complete and perfect mix of rhythms, melodies, layers and textures, all wrapped up in a modern electronic setting that crosses ambient, synth, industrial and beyond, with an ease of accessibility, a tightly knit strength and an appeal that is so wide as to astound most synth fans who hear it. So, whether you want more in your sequencer music than you are getting, whether you have whole-heartedly embraced ambient, techno and Kiss-FM, whether you want industrial electronics with melody and structure, this is one album you wouldn't have though of buying but, by not doing so, one in which you are seriously missing out on some of the finest music around today from the Canadian creative geniuses that are this trio.
So there you have it - the only way of getting the music is now on this package, so you owe it to yourself to discover something different and rewarding, and that's all of this mighty double CD.
V/A: Globalize CD
Every so often a psychedelic trance album come along that gets the mixture of beats and rhythms, bass and sequencers, melodies and effects, just spot on to be classed as essential home listening, thepace of things being exactly right so that the music becomes addictive right from the start without going over into the thudding boredom that is so often the case. With a decidedly house groove to a lot of the tracks, including a stunning showcase of rhythmic power and classic melodic trance from Flash Brothers, there's not a less than engaging second on this seventy five minute album, one that will have you leaping around the room as much as it will have you hooked and foot-tapping to an ocean of beats and melodies, rhythms and layers, on a trip that is well worth repeating over and over again.
V/A: Vajra CD
For a chill-out, downtempo album, it's got some incredibly solid and luxurious beats and rhythm running throughout its length. From cascading synths-infused ambient dub through chilled-trance to chill-house grooves, this is one chunky set of rhythmic foundations. On top of this are placed samples, flowing synths, dub-infused echoed layers, sweeping strings on occasion, deep rumbling bass both real and electronic, choirs, melodies - the works - in various combinations. The overall effect is of one of the most solid and consistent chilled-out ambient albums of the year and no mistake.
ZEN DAD: Welcome To My World CDR
The music on this album really flows and is the sort of thing you really do enjoy as a complete entity. Most of the tracks bar the brief intro and one cosmic piece, are founded on beds of rhythmic drive, and several feature riffing electric guitar in addition to all the synths that swirl and solo all over the mix. The main reference points are modern Astralasia, Banco De Gaia and, to a degree, Hawkwind or, and it's highly unlikely this guy's heard any, Alien Dream. So, on the journey through the 11 tracks on here, you'll hear elements of space-rock, allied to electronic rock that covers everything from trance and ambient through to almost Shreeve-esque synth and the occasional Eastern-tinged melody, although the structure of most of the tracks revolves around layered melodies above solid, chunky rhythms, with swirling space synths, the odd sample and soaring distant strings, rearing their heads from time to time. After the space music intro of 'Akhetaten', the album moves into 'Dragon Isle' on a bed of synth strings, swirling space synths and distant samples on a foundation of pounding electronic drum rhythms and swooshing synth melodies, a mix of trance and synth that really rocks. The three minute 'Extra Terrestrial' delivers more of the same while the four and a half minute 'Allahdin' movs slower and more eerily but no less powerfully, a mix of ambient dub and industrial space electronics.'Welcome To The Planet' is a three minute cosmic space piece while 'Arrival In Eden' is a three minute slice of electronic space-rock. The ten minute 'Shemanna' mixes practically everything that's gone before into one gigantic melting pot, moving through space music to wild rampaging trance-synth with ease. Tere is one track, at six and a half minutes long, which is 'Echoes Of Fragility' that shines out in crystal clarity as the initial string synths soar across the horizon before more string layers are added against a backdrop of tinkling synth tones creating a warm and gorgeous soundscape. Then a layer of swirling, cyclical melodic synth leads emerges as a thudding percussive beat appears only to be enriched by a deep resonant bass line and more electronic drum rhythms to give the track drive and more of a solid structure rather than a one-note trance rhythm. Above this now dramatic, driving slice of ambient trance, the lead melodies soar and swirl to ear-catching effect as the rhythms disappear, leaving the wondrous synths-laden panorama to expand before the rhythms, this time more subdued but no less strong, return, then suddenly become louder, then disappear and so on - dynamics that work a treat on the best sounding, and possibly the best track, on the album, although the pounding rhythms and swirling synths, distant fuzz slide guitar and seriously space-rock-meets-trance track that is the three minute 'Mindbreak' that follows, just tears the roof off. Overall, there's a lot of potential for this album - it's production is good - in terms of its content, it's solid, chunky, varied, mostly of an ambient-trance nature, but well played and arranged. Whether all this is enough for it to rise above many that are out there already, largely depends on how others see it, but for now it gets my vote as something worthy of your attention.
CANTERBURY
DAEVID ALLEN/MICRO COSMIC: Sacred Geometry 2 CD
Nearly seventy minutes of spacey ambience from a multi-textured array of gorgeous glissando guitars, keyboards and sonic sculpting, flute, sitar, santor, harp and space-whisper. The overall sound is very Eastern/Asian influenced with vast, slowly moving swirls of sound, rising like smoke into the atmosphere then hanging suspended before fading as the next picture appears. From slow Terry Riley-esque organ swirls through deep and expansive rivers of bass glissandos to melodic flute, searing electric guitar, those absolutely stunning glissando guitar lead lines that pervade the whole thing and provide the true magic of the music, all this and more, make up a truly inspirational music of the cosmos. Nothing goes at a pace that's much above sedate and relaxed, it's free of beats and rhythms, and the feel is of complete bliss, but all the time, nothing ever stands still. The ever changing patterns of sound and soundscaping, evolves and flows almost as a living, breathing entity. The combination of harp, glissando guitar, deep bass rumbles and distant soaring synth swoops on 'Divine Guidance' is breathtaking and joyous, while the addition of Gilli Smyth's space-whisper to the twelve minute 'Merkaba' is another layer on the musical cake that makes it even more sumptuous. A dream album in every sense, this is the sound of real cosmic space music that isn't made on synthesizers of any kind, but, if anything, carries and even greater effect and degree of affection. A truly wondrous album.
EURO-ROCK/CONTEMPORARY:
CANCER CONSPIRACY: The Audio Medium CD
Instrumental album based primarily around electric guitars as the main leads with solid rhythm section backing and keyboards used both as sound fillers and the occasional co-lead - al in all a bit like the way
Djam Karet do things. Now it's funny you should mention them………….because that's what sprang to mind on hearing this collection of fiery and more sedate instrumentals. Hovering a bit closer to the fringes of psychedelia at one end and contemporary shoegazing at the other, what gives this the nod to a prog-rock fraternity keen on guitar jamming is its sense of melody and twisted time signiatures, both of which operate together on the album's 9 tracks, but this band manage to tie up two seemingly at odds ways of doing things, into something that gels and coalesces to create a set of solid, flowing guitars-driven instrumentals that really gives back what you put in. It's not as fragile as most prog, preferring to power things along on tidal waves of surging rhythms and scorching guitars, but it possesses melody and dynamics that make it something into which you want to sink your teeth and ears. The album ends with a near twenty three minute title track that starts as a fiery twelve minutes of full-on power with guitars and rhythm section on fire before segueing into the three minutes of soundscaping that leads into the slowly steaming dynamics of guitars and keys that is the drum-less thirds segment before finishing you off with another four minutes of searing heat from the guitars and rhythm section, all the time the sound stretching from horizon to horizon as it fills your head with stars. A stunning album and one that you would do well to investigate - hot stuff and then some.
CLUSTER: Cluster II - Remastered CD
Unbelievably, this was recorded in January 1972. 32 years later it is every bit as fresh and innovative, totally unique and still an amazing listening experience. This duo used an arsenal of keyboards, guitars, percussives and electronics to produce an album that still remains both unique and challenging, yet one of the most accessible albums of non-melodic, non-rhythmic music. But it is the actual sound pattern created that give the album its worthy legendary status as a flowing set of textures and layers sound clearly electronic, guitars in the middle of the churning mass of electronic keyboard layers, the effect particularly awesome on the 13 mins of 'Im Suden'. 'Plas' opens the album with 6 mins of pulsing, shuddering layers that ring, drone and boom as the composition follows a compulsive musical path. 'Fur Die Katz' achieves a soaring, cascading, echoed, droning set of textures that achieves in 3 mins what most similar bands today can't get together on a whole album. The comes the monumental, close to 15 mins of 'Live In Der Fabrik' which isn't live but is a firmly studio-based piece that covers such a new musical ground with its pulsing, echoed, dense, fluid, multi-layered, droning and flowing landscapes of electronics, percussives and beyond, phased, treated, echoed, modelled and shaped to create a track that is a veritable cauldron of constantly flowing electronics and guitars, sounding totally unlike anything other than brief snatches of early Kraftwerk, Neu, Cosmic Jokers and Faust, with the Cluster process firmly in control. Thereafter, we have 5 eerie minutes of organ and electronics, again droning and shimmering like you've never heard before, ending the album with a brief and scary set of prepared samples and sound effects, booming piano chords, dense electronics and pulsing layers of sound. A classic. The new remaster makes the whole thing sound better than ever before, with a clarity that leads you to a lot of subtleties previously unheard in the mix, completed with a new booklet with new photos and liner notes, digi-pak format and you have an unrivalled unique album from the German Electronic heyday.
EROC: Eroc -Remastered + Bonus Tracks CD
Yes, THAT Eroc - the drummer for Grobschnitt. So, what's he doing here? Because his first solo album from the early seventies was a synth music album, that's why - and a good one too. First off, as is fairly typical of any electronic music that came out of Germany in the early seventies, it doesn't sound like anyone else, then once you've crossed that divide, you find it's an album full of cosmic soundscaping, delicious melodies, deep expansive bass rivers and lots of twittering, phased, swooshing, cascading, deep, resonant space synths, lead melodies, all wrapped up in a variety of arrangements from languid to dark and powerful. There's even some electric guitar in there too - most notably in the six and a half minute 'Norderland' where the cyclical chiming guitar line adds to the whole density of the track as it flows its multi-layered, solidly rhythmic way to your heart, full to overflowing with electronics, synths drums, bass, guitars and a production that's out of this world. Other track are brief glimpses into a world of new electronic music while a track revolving around echoed voices and electronics, 'Horrorgoll', is close to the avant-garde Cluster experiments, in nature if not in actual sound, of the time. The bonus tracks sound more like something off the first Harmonia album, only more twisted and with added layers. With over twenty minutes of extra music, this is an interesting album that has stood the test of time pretty well and remains both a fascinating document of a musician experimenting with new sound productions as well as being immensely enjoyable and extremely varied, throughout.
FROG POCKET: Moon Mountain Of The Folds CD
A 7 track, thirty five minute mini-album from leading Scottish contemporary musician. Using a variety of sound sources that range from traditional violin and keys to electronic-sounding passages and tape delays and processed sound sources, he provides a set that really has no peers, using melody and tune, texture and layers, alongside, odd time signatures, all manner of processed effects, wheezing bass synth sounding depths, lurching electronic drum patterns and just a whole mass of soundscapes that range from the caustic to the sublime, often all within a single track. Yet the remarkable fact, for all its strangeness,, is just how hypnotic this thing becomes. It's not so far removed from "normal" that a fan of melodic contemporary music could not appreciate it, yet it is totally inventive, very wide-ranging but always somehow atmospheric whether in space or on earth or somewhere alien. Most of it is highly palatable and even the strangeness of it all, wears off after a couple of plays. There's nothing else like it and it deserves to be heard.
I.E.M.: 1996-1999 CD
Just over half of this album consists of the first, and totally instrumental, IEM LP released in 1996.It opens with a near thirteen minute instrumental track that's worth the price of admission on its own - a steaming stream of Krautrock jamming with its roots in the seventies, its rhythms in Neu & Can, it's guitar work solidly psychedelic, a mid-song, one and a half minute respite of eerie electronics and brief mellotrons, hissing cymbals and backwards effects, before firing up once more and surging ahead as it began - a stunning slice of seventies-rooted Kraut-esque magic. Following this are eight minute of classic, early seventies influenced cosmic music, the sort of thing you'd have heard on an early Tangerine Dream album only more psychedelic and with more guitar, but plenty of swirling synths, rattling drums and percussion and wandering keyboards. The eight and a half minute 'Fie Kesh' opts for a more sedate but no less powerful mix of deep drones, swirling space synths, Eastern-sounding drums and percussion, chiming acoustic guitars, deep rumbling bass and an absolutely gorgeous Krautrock-derived electric guitar lead that flis slowly overhead, as yet another magical track unfolds. The original album ends with another nine minute rampage through the world of psychedelic laced Krautrock that echoes early Neu with early Hawkwind space-rock and is simply astounding. On this CD there is also a track called 'Escalator To Christmas', here in two versions, one lasting ten and a half minutes, the other over thirteen, but both are corking instrumentals, again continuing the flavour of what's gone before, with some outstanding electric guitar work amid the chiming guitar backdrops and rolling rhythm section - another pair of outstanding instrumentals that mix Neu, Hawkwind & Popol Vuh in equal measures. The only other track on here is the six minute 'Headphone Dust', a slowly reflective instrumental that is pure early seventies Krautrock with soaring slide guitar, chiming acoustic guitars, distant organ and just the osrt of thing you'd have heard way back then. Overall, this is a faultless CD with not a second of wasted music time on it, every track a gem and if you're into early seventies instrumental Krautrock with a slight dash of that era space-rock jamming, then this is essential listening and a long-lasting pleasure.
OUTERDRIVE: Hallucinations CD
A guitar-bass-drums trio playing some of THE most exquisite, shoegazing instrumental post-rock around and certainly one of the best examples of the style. While most of the arrangements are taken at a pace that you'd called "relaxed", there's a slow-burning sea of brooding power going on at the heart of the music, giving you the feeling that it's all about to erupt at any minute - but it never does. Instead, the guitars flow and soar and explore the cosmos with ringing, shimmering, cascading, soaring, rising, falling, echoed, driving chords and structures while all around and below, the solid electric bass and drums provide a backing that is almost organically sympathetic to the universes into which the guitar travels. On the second track 'Side Show', there is a section where the band does fire up and take off, but then it all comes down to earth in this immaculate and gorgeous sounding sea of guitar flow and rhythmic drive, as all the time extra textures are added to provide depth and drama. But the overall ambient strength and feel of the music carries on uninterrupted, the trio taking your head to places it never gets to go without exploding it at the same time. There's a definite whiff of early seventies Krautrock in the air across tracks running up to close on eleven minutes, while the mix of surging and driving instrumental work is always balanced by the slower, more emotive structures, and the end result is one stunning example of instrumental post-rock fusion that you simply can't fault.
SUBARACHNOID SPACE & WALKING TIMEBOMBS: The Sleeping Sickness CD
Even though it's 8 tracks and sixty seven minutes of instrumental music, it plays pretty well continuously for even greater jaw-dropping effect. Here, three electric guitarists plus bassist and drummer, whip up a right potent brew of surging riffs, searing solos, steaming ensemble passages, driving duelling and atmospheric ambience, as the band take you to on a trip from which you won't come down in a hurry. It's all structured - or seemingly so - and even the wilder passages have melodic content, so that it never becomes an amorphous squall of sound or an improvisational nightmare.. The way the guitars trade off each other, have their own identities and sounds and yet combine to form this solid wall of attack, is something that ha you absolutely glued to the ensuing music with wrapt attention, as you simply immerse yourself in it for the duration. Played loud, it takes on a life of its own as well as taking over completely. Powerful and passionate, this is the sound of instrumental guitar attack with menace, melody and maximum impact, a set that the likes of seventies bands such as Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru and similar, would have killed to sound like. To say it's stunning, doesn't do it justice - but it is - and then some.
