STEFAN ERBE: Timeless CD
A synth musician who can write not only a good melody but a solid tune and then combine it with musical elements that don't make what he's doing sound twee or cheesy, is quite a rare occurrence these days, but this guy has got that off to a tee on this album, the finest of his career to date. The odd part is that it is done so well, that there's no-one you can really compare it with. The reason it works so well is that it's the perfect meeting of melodic synth and rhythmic ambient, so well entwined that you simply aren't conscious of labelling it as anything but a great sounding sea of synth layers, melodies tunes and rhythms all wrapped up in an ever moving, solid foundation of electronic drums, electronic rhythms and deep bass. Most of the time, what you're hearing could be classed as "chunky" with tungsten strength rhythms moving ever forward at slow-mid paced settings, while all around the synths and sequencers, strings and effects provide a busy-sounding but natural order of things as the whole becomes greater than the parts, every track proving positively addictive, making you want to listen to each last second before moving on to the next. It's one of those albums that can be enjoyed from start to finish by fans of artists as diverse as Jarre or Pickford at one end of the scale, Kraftwerk or T-Bass UK in the middle and Astralasia or Salt Tank at the other end. That it is done so well is good enough, that it is so enjoyable is pretty darned amazing - I wouldn't normally go near an album like this, but this is a treat.
GALACTIC ANTHEMS: Before The Drone CD
Is it prog-rock? Yes!
Is it synth music? Yes!
Is it good? Yes!
Well, that's ticked all the right boxes - so let me explain that this is good - it's not great - but it is good - although if you fancy the idea of a synths/keys dominated instrumental prog-rock album that sound s like something that Keith Emerson & Rick Wakeman might have recorded in the early seventies provided they'd had a glimpse into the future and realised that you could use bouncing electronic drum rhythms rather than go through all that hassle and have a real drummer!! Anyway, despite some of the rhythms being a tad "fairground", it's solid and you can't argue with that. Above that, this arsenal of synths, keys, strings and percussive synth sounds provide a huge array of melodies and layers that give a very symphonic element to the proceedings, It's all easily digestible so that there's nothing on here that's going to tax your brain in any way. I found it all too insipid, despite it's tight and solid production, multi-layered arrangements and admittedly powerful playing, but others who aren't quite the had-banger that I've become, might well find this to be pretty well spot on.
GALACTIC ANTHEMS: Galactic Anthems CD
Largely dispensing with the prog-rock side of things, this is a similarly composed album to the powerful and melodic 'Before The Drone' as it is still based largely around synths, keys and electronically derived synth and percussive rhythms with added bass for extra depth. But this one substitutes atmosphere for power, textural for symphonic and cosmic for aggressive. Yet, at the heart of things remains melodies, bouncy rhythms, tunes, the occasional more drifting space-synth tracks and overall a quite varied, sometimes more powerful, but mostly mid-range melodic, set of instrumentals, once again, easily accessible and undemanding.
GALACTIC ANTHEMS: Abstract Circuitry CD
Now firmly ensconced in the synth music arena, this album largely consists of tunes and melodies and layers set to assorted rhythmic foundations that are largely drum-based of some description. The first eight and a half minute and title track, opens with swirling synths before this marching, lurching, dramatic sounding drum rhythm pounds in, deep bass joining the proceedings as all manner of space synth swooshes and soundscapes swirl all around the central rhythmic core. String synths weave elongated melodies and the whole effect is a very busy sounding piece which eventually opens up to a thudding, chunky electro-percussive beat and soaring string synths amid more swooshes, before returning to the style in which it opened. The four and a half minute 'Sunrise At Sheep Pass' is almost all space synths, soaring strings and deep bass set in a loud but cosmic territory, but with tinkling synth rhythms at the base and the briefest burst of thunderous drums around the three minute point before settling back to pure space synths for the rest of the track. The four and a half minute 'Smooth' is more like a chunky, melodic ambient trance with beefy electro-percussive rhythms and more high-flying string-like synths, while the similarly timed 'Madness' is eerily cosmic industrial soundscaping. The three minute 'Machine' throbs away on a foundation of expansive space synths, marching electronic and percussive beats, hazy samples, wheezy distant synths and overall, the sound of the factory on another world. The near eight minute 'Quietly Dreaming' does just that, although even here, around six minutes in, the spell is broken with the arrival of, admittedly gentle and resonant, native drums to add depth and solidity to the string and soothing space synths that dominate. This drum sound is carried forward into the four minute 'Awakening' that sounds more like a lost Steve Roach track with its native drum work and space synths. The five minute 'Unstoppable' and the near three minute 'Downtime' are both completely cosmic, while the album ends on fourteen and a half minutes of 'The Enchantment' which is also rhythm-free cosmic space music with tons of layers, textures and atmospheres and ends up as the finest track on a rather fine and consistently enjoyable album.
GALACTIC ANTHEMS: Subterranean Transit CD
The style now sealed, the brand new studio album sees this musician furthering what he began on the previous album and so you get a CD that's mixed between solidly chunky, electro-percussive and native drums-driven pieces that have echoes with Steve Roach, more "Euro-mainland" sounding seas of electronic drums over which assorted melodies and synth atmospheres expand, while, once again, the album ends with a trilogy of space music tracks, the last of which lasts a massive nineteen minutes. Overall, once again, it's a really sensational album - something you could imagine appealing greatly to fans of Jarre, Boots and similar.
MANUEL GOTTSCHING: Concert For Murnau CD
The absolute blinding beauty of this album can be summed up if I say that there's a near ten minute track, second in, called 'The Party' that sounds like the Ash Ra classic 'Sunrain' decelerated and played by a string quartet rather than the guitar but with the synths still in tact - and it's just WONDERFUL!!!
The facts - this is a soundtrack to a silent movie, performed live as it was shown, and featuring Gottsching on electronics and a mini-orchestra of two violins, two horns and cello. Some of the tracks feature just the orchestra, some just the electronics, others both. But what connects it all and makes it so amazing is its sheer gorgeousness - there's a human heart beating away at the centre of all of this that fills the music with emotion, warmth and a sense of time gone by - as it should be for its subject matter film. Parts of it will almost bring you to tears at the absolute emotion that the strings convey while the ones that mix real strings and synth/organ are so superb sounding that you wonder why anyone ever uses synth strings at all, as evidenced in the four and a half minute space music of 'Der Abend'. The 7th track in, nearly nine minutes of 'High Noon' is the first to introduce a significant rhythm to the proceedings as electronic drums rumble under a sea of flutey melody and soaring low-range strings while sequencers can be heard way down in the mix, and it's still completely brilliant, as synths soar overhead and the track marches on. The near ten minute 'Saint And Sinner' is all synths, gentle electronic drum rhythms and strings on a slowly flowing slice of solid, expansive, full-sounding, heart-warming magic while the three minute 'Demaskierung' is the perfect marriage of horns and synths in a cosmic setting that you'll hear. Overall, a an album in its own right, evocative, full of feeling and a triumph of composition, playing and emotion - something to treasure for decades to come.
MANUEL GOTTSCHING: Die Mulde CD
Two tracks lasting forty and thirty two minutes respectively. The first forty minute and title track is the soundtrack from the now deleted video that came out in 1997 and is split into four parts. It opens with a three minute slice of pure and rich sounding cosmic synth music, a feel and sound which is then continued on the thirteen minute title segment only here, as the track moves on, a sea of slowly moving exotic Eastern-flavoured percussive rhythms are added, then disappear for the final few minutes that revert back to the gorgeous sounding cosmic synth. The near twelve minute 'Die Spiegel' is a much busier, more cyclical track, one that hearkens back to the glory days of 'Persian Surgery Dervishes' style Terry Riley only more solid, more layers and more hypnotic as beds of synths, synth bass, organ and electronics swirl all around your head, opening out at around eight minutes to add a Moroccan sounding drums rhythm that totally changes the nature of the track as the cyclical sea moves into the background and the drums take over amid a soaring set of space synths, all on a track that is simply magnificent. This segues directly into the eleven minute 'Zerfluss' which is pure typical 'New Age Of Earth' styled Ash Ra underneath this incredible array of drum and electro-percussive rhythms, and as a complete twenty three minute piece with the previous track, makes for a sea of music that is beyond brilliant.In addition there is a bonus thirty two minute track called 'Hp Little Cry' for which the core structure emanates from 1981 with electric guitar overlays from 2004. There are no rhythms - just thirty two minutes of glorious cosmic space synths under some of the most exquisite electric guitar leads that you've ever heard the musician play - they flow and weave and soar in quite magical fashion, and this is arguably the best cosmic track that Gottsching has committed to CD to date - beyond spellbinding, it's one of those tracks that you could loop for hours and never tire of hearing - a track to which you return, time after time. As a complete album it's fantastic - as a partner to the recently issued 'Concert For Murnau' it's an unrivalled duo in electronic music that is so head and shoulders above everyone else, you simply wonder why they bother.
JOHN LAKVEET: Proportions CD
On the thirteen minute opening track 'Fractal Clouds' you get the distincty impression that here's a guy for whom the sequencer and synth rhythms come first, and once he's got those as he wants, then he'll start to think about the rest, for this is truly a sequencer-fest of the highest order, with anything approaching a melody way below in the mix with the space synths and electronic swooshes. Even the quiet bit in the middle is dominated by sequencer rhythms, although out of this does come a melody line, one that quickly gets hammered by an even more solid sea of sequencer rhythms. Of course, you probably won't be at all surprised to find that the next track at three and a half minutes long, doesn't feature a rhythm in any way, shape or form, before the six minute 'Confusion Of Integral' is aptly named as the first half is like the first track while the second half is like the second track only sounding more like Vangelis in outer space - confused? You will be!! Well, perhaps not, as most of the rest of the album revolves around the central framework of sequencer rhythms - tons of the things - vari-paced but always solid and the core around which the tracks rotate. So, if you like sequencers used for all sorts of rhythmic and melodic effects, rather like what Steve Roach tried for in albums like 'Empetus' & 'Storm Warning', then this will please you down the ground.
NEURONIUM: Mystyktea CD
The album opens with the ten and a half minute 'Religion Means War' which starts on a layer of space synths before a brief burst of choral voices appear and the track begins its journey. Adding an oboe-like synth lead to the sea of lush synths that appear all around, the track slowly climbs and then adds this fantastic percussive rhythm - and you are suddenly thinking "jeez,this is Klaus Schulze" as things start to drive, synths start to swirl, melodies appear, and the whole developing sound fills the airwaves with the glorious multi-layers as the oboe-like synth returns, a piano-sounding melody that is pure Schulze appears then disappears before you know it, as the percussive rhythms, swirling melodies, deep bass undercurrents, tinkling synth surrounds, soaring strings start to fade amid a crash of gongs and the end comes - possibly one of the finest tracks to open a Neuronium album in ages. The four and a half minute title track is a more sedate exercise with more of a heart-warming orchestral feel to it as the strings take over amid rippling synth chords and the whole cosmic panorama sounding majestic and anthemic throughout. The nine and a half minute 'Comic Illumination' does what it says on the tin, and is a typical full-sounding slice of Neuronium space music, but here with a sound so huge and expansive that it hearkens back to the finest glory days as the strings, synth swoops, space synths, bass synths and richly arranged synth melodies all combine to create this stunning sounding alice of space synth heaven. The near fifteen minute Great Wiles' is another space music composition, but this time with added textures and effects from rippling chords that run through the heart of the track in its initial stages, echoed electronics and percussive splashes, cascading space synths, a wordless female vocal that gets multi-tracked for excellent harmonic effect, all combine to create an other-worldly soundscape for the first four minutes before the scene changes shape, a solid string synth emerges from the depths, a Schulze-like organ sound is added, space synths start to build and the composition rises majestically upwards in slow, warm and almost seventies sounding fashion only to fade around the seven minute mark, whereupon a whole new soundscape is begun. Here the space synths and percussive twitters start things off as this amazing sounding sea of cosmic bliss appears from nowhere and just takes over to spellbinding effect. String synths are added, the piece takes on a brief more orchestral sounding identity before these, too, fade and the space music takes over, all the time a bed of subtly echoed percussive ripples running below the mix. Around eleven minutes this burst of angelic chorus gives the whole thing a new and more spiritual feel as the synths start to mass and it's almost church-like in its execution and effect. Shortly this disappears and the track ends in a sea of echoed, rippling synth melodies, space synth swoops and slowly fading strings, altogether a most fantastic piece of music. The seven minute 'In Aliens I Trust' is just gorgeous, as it revolves around strings, space synths, angelic choral synth voices, vast expanses of cosmic soundscapes and the effect is calming, wide-eyed and blissful, yet solid and substantial. For the eight minutes of 'Healing Love' a piano melody is introduced, initially on its own, but then with added synths as it slowly fades to let the synth melodies take over on what is now a quite tuneful track, almost a love theme to some long forgotten movie. This builds into a wall of space synths splendour as the slowly flowing synth melody lines and distant choral voices weave their spells in relaxed and dreamy fashion, the piece ending with the piano chords that began it. The album ends with nearly four minutes of 'Believe In Yourself' as synth melodies, that earlier oboe-like synth lead and chunky electronic drums provide a positively anthemic end to a quite stunning album.
PROSPERO: Fibonacci CD
A fifteen track, sixty minute instrumental album based around some mathematical numerical sequence the life of me which I couldn't understand in a zillion years, would sound a bit like heavy going on a sheer enjoyment level - sadly, for me, it was. You see a lot of the tracks, played on a variety of keyboards, synths and percussion, are very cyclical and repetitive sounding. Now, I say repetitive sounding, because in actual fact, like the best Philip Glass or Terry Riley short tracks, they don't actually ever stand still in terms of variation as there is always some undercurrent, albeit exceedingly subtle at times, going on in the music. But to someone such as myself, who has never really got on with the more experimental side of this music, the cyclical nature of the beast proved to be something that I didn't really get on with, although I would imagine that there are many out there that would.
STEVE ROACH: The Dreamtime Box Ltd Edition 4 CD Box Set
Consisting of the newly 24 bit remaster of the legendary double CD 'Dreamtime Return' plus two full-length albums in the form of 'New Life Dreaming' and 'Possible Planet' that continue in a similar musical vein, this represents one of the finest comic synth music box sets on the planet right now. 'Dreamtime Return', now sounding better than ever, is a much-extended CD release in comparison with the original vinyl issue, and it's one of his most consistent releases to date, travelling across the many musical lands that are the territory of Steve Roach, as you'll find in this feature. With 14 tracks ranging from three to thirty-one minutes in length, this set offers a vast range of synth-led musical dimensions, and with a production to complement the quality of delivery, composition and arrangement that is second to none, this is one of those two hour double albums that you can just sit and enjoy virtually any time of the day or night. For it's length, it's one of the most varied, yet consistent doubles of the catalogue, and as a bonus it features guest spots from the likes of Kevin Braheny & Robert Rich, who both add their own brand of exotic delights to the immense sonic cauldron. It is as warm an album as they come, avoiding the 'sweet-sounding' tag and instead serving as the perfect complement in a much more solid, purposeful and structured way to the simple perfection that is the 'Western Spaces' album. With some of the most beautiful music to be found on a Steve Roach album, this 2CD set simply cannot be faulted, and to say it's essential listening is as obvious as saying 'don't forget to breathe' - and just as life-sustaining. "Fantastic" doesn't even come close - Try "Immaculate"!! 'New Life Dreaming' features music recorded in 204 and 2005 and opens with the fifteen minute 'Perfect Dream', a title which just about sums it up as the gorgeous layers of cosmic and space synths possess a full sound and a sense of flow that no other synth musician can come close to creating and make it all sound so natural, so warm and as near to heaven as music can get. The fifteen minute 'Where I Live' continues this musical vein and the effect is sublime as the rich synth textures envelop you with feeling. The fifteen minute 'The Ancients' Way' is also cosmic but adds some wondrously ambient drumming courtesy of Byron Metcalf which in no way detracts from the mood and atmospheres that are created by the synth rivers and adds a neat extra depth to an already seemingly bottomless well of ever shifting, drifting and full-sounding space synths. The nine minute 'Deep Sky Time' features cosmic synths that have more of a sparkle to them, soundscapes bubbling up and disappearing like clouds in the sky and the album ends on the fourteen minute 'In The Eye Of Noche' where extra layers and soundpools are provided by a brief piano layer and a far-distant, wordless, heavenly female voice that is as textural and as flowing as the synths. Overall, an equally perfect album. 'Possible Planet' is a 3-track, seventy three minute CD that is all completely space music, all performed only on analogue synths and is very dark and eerie, but absolutely spellbinding, a prefect partner for everything that' gone before and an astoundingly well constructed and played body of music. Overall, yet another essential Steve Roach set.
V/A: Analogy Vol 1 CD
Well, the idea here is, in essence, that each band or artist play a track purely on analogue synths, a maximum of three can be used, plus assorted sequencers and other instruments as required, presumably with the aim of making something that sounds like a seventies "Berlin School" overload. Well, I'm happy to report that this album, of all-exclusive tracks, sounds as much like Tangerine Dream as Madonna - no, on second thoughts……..anyway, it's not what you think it's going to be - it's far better actually. With 12 tracks from the likes of Create, Remotion, Nerell/Roach/Oken, Emmens plus the return of Ian Tescee and the first ever official CD track from Altres, it's a varied and consistent trip that is well worth taking. Some artists, such as New Zealand's space music king, Russell Storey, opt for non-rhythmic cosmic excursions into the great unknown, while others such as Create, the label's own Kees Aerts, Syn and Emmens set the sequncers for the heart of the universe. While it's all excellent, the best track are the most inventive ones, so the dark and bleak yet full-sounding space music exploration that is Nerell/Roach/Oken's eight minute 'Zone Patrol' is particularly unnerving and fascinating as the assorted textures and layers glide and flow while the bizarrely named 4m33s provide four minutes of languid, flowing, slowly rising string-synths-dominated melodic space in the form of the exquisite 'Elegy' and Altres provide a multi-textured eight minutes of 'Brain Flame' that starts with cosmic soundscaping from what sounds like a processed guitar before the sequencers start to roll and synth melodies and layers fly overhead, assorted effects and backdrops swirling and soaring in and around the mix to stunning effect.
Overall, a corker of an album and one that will keep analogue synth fans in raptures for a long time to come - until 'Vol 2', no doubt!!
V/A: Awakenings 2006 Vol 1 DBLCD
Double CD of mostly exclusive tracks, both unreleased and recorded live at the "Awakenings" series of concerts in 2005, plus just three already available album tracks. The album reads like a who's who of division two synth musicians with exclusives from known names such as Skin Mechanix, Glimmer Room, Create, Omega Syndicate, Gert Emmens & Rogue Element, to name but the ones you've heard of. As to the musical content, well, it will come as no surprise whatsoever when I say CD 1 and half of CD 2 are biased towards the "Berlin School" side of things with sequencers set for the heart of Leeds, while it may surprise you when I say that nearly half of CD 2 is taken up with the more cosmic music, sequencer-free side of things, but overall, there are 18 tracks - over two and a half hours - lasting anything between four and sixteen minutes. The sound quality throughout - even of the live tracks - remains high. There's nothing less than excellent, musically, here, if this style is your must-have genre, but highlights for me are the wonderfully melodic, atmospheric and sequencer-free Glimmer Room track, the flowing seven minutes of synth rivers, solid drums and soaring electric guitar from Cult Of Ashand (who I've never heard of, but could do with hearing more), Rogue Element who can really construct a track and supply fourteen minutes of brilliance, but really, it's all remarkably consistent on every level.
VOLT: Through The Rings CD
Third album in, four lengthy tracks and over seventy minutes of music later, and it stands as not only the finest album they've done to date but one of the best synth music albums you've heard in 2005. This time round, what you'd call the core melodies that soar across the space like some otherworldly flying creature of grace and beauty, are full-sounding and filled with emotional warmth. Even better is that we're not actually on a seventies sounding Tangerine Dream trip. While its roots are enmeshed in the seventies - you only have to hear the sequencers for that to be obvious - this is pure unadulterated classic Wavestar, somewhere around the 'Moonwind' period only without the Dyson guitar. The twenty one minute opener could so easily be a mix of early eighties stretched out T Dream with equally stretched out Wavestar and comes across as simply fantastic - no other word for it. But it has a power to it also - sense of solid structure and purpose - a sound that drives forward in a sea of strings, sequencers, melodies, electro-percussive rumblings and deep rivers of bass - almost early Oldfield at times only all synths and electronics. But then it reverts to that choral sounding Redshift way of things and the effect becomes even more magical. The album's worth it for this track alone, but when you then discover three more tracks between fifteen and twenty minutes that are every bit as consistent as what you've just heard, then you know you're in for one of the synth music treats of the year - and it doesn't disappoint. The fifteen minute 'Soaring Beneath The Surface' is one that builds to a powerful degree, very much along the lines of the Wavestar classic 'Timenode' only without the guitar, with the sequencers more solid and up in the mix, and is just fantastic, while the twenty minute title track really does go for the seventies T Dream effect - this time with electric guitar flying high above the sequencers but electric guitar that sounds spot on for the music that drives and flows all around. Overall, a faultless album and a timeless classic that you'll play and play and play.
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.
