MIND OVER MATTER: Indian Meditation CD
Moral No 1 - never judge an album by its title - come to that, don't judge it by the artists promotional blurb, either.
Because I know what you lot out there are like - you'll see this title and that it's inspired by his trips through the Indian subcontinent and how the musician "brought with him unusual sounds from different parts of the country" and so on - put two and two together and make a less than appealing prospect.
Well, the reality is - and trust me, I'm a Guru - that this album is simply stunning!! No word of a lie - it's gorgeous, almost breathtakingly so.
It opens and closes with two sublime, full-sounding, multi-layered, cosmic synth tracks averaging six minutes a piece with synths and mellotrons set in heavenly mode. Between that you'll find two eleven minute tracks that are cosmic synth excursions with an Indian flavour in that the use of sitars, field recordings and the overall atmospherics of what makes the essence of Indian meditation, is kept so that it works WITHIN the music that is the main body of the track, so that undulating bass, rippling piano, soaring synths, heavenly choirs, flute, mellotron and synth strings, all carry the tracks forward, while the overall feel is almost akin to parts of the 'Music For Paradise' album, only here much warmer sounding and multi-faceted, musically speaking. Of the two, the eleven minutes of 'La Vie' also introduces a solid but chilled-out tabla drum rhythm to provide added empetus to the synth splendours. A four and a half minute 'Varanasi Morning' is a veritable sea of mellotrons with a fell to that of Froese's 'Epsilon In Malaysian Pale' while the 2 five minute tracks, 'Mountains Of Karma' and 'Northstar' are simply fantastic, multi-textured, varied, flowing synths-dominated slices of heavenly music. A final track, the near seven minute 'Sri Ram' is the closest the album gets to an overtly "Indian-dominated" offering, as tables and Indian stringed instruments combine with a chanting female vocal that is absolutely wondrous, all above this huge sounding desert of synths, deep bass, resonant ethnic drums and soaring flutes, that all combined, takes you right back to the heady days of the seventies, in terms of sheer feel and execution.
Honestly, there's not a bad track on this album - it's solid yet heavenly, warm sounding but not sweet, substantial yet cosmic and so magically arranged, produced and delivered, all you want to do when you've played it once - is play it right through again - I did - and I'm sure you will too. Superb!!!
OTAKU: Timeless Arrival CD
Now I warn you - this could well be the LOUDEST synth music CD you've ever heard!
So loud it takes on an almost industrial dimension - but listen to this - what happens when you have a synth musician who loves the classic early works of Mark Shreeve such as 'Crashead' and 'Legion' but feels they aren't anything like powerful enough, and decides to produce his own original music that is also designed to correct that "imbalance"? Well, the answer is - this album. The opening sea odf sound is almost sonic overload incarnate, but without rhythms, so that when you hit the immense blast that is all six minutes of the title track, your ears are practically falling off, as this juggernaut of wall-to-wall synth sound comes charging at you like a rabid rhino, the whole thing so explosive in an intensity that's more like a bomb going off in your head, where the musician decides to sacrifice clarity for sheer effect, the end result being this seismic wall of sound from which the melodies and solos don't so much rise as struggle to break free from the immense sonic soup in which they are nearly drowning. This is synth music so heavy that even Shreeve could not have dared to go this over the top, for over the top it most definitely is - and I have to say that I love every gloriously dirty minute of it. But that's not the whole story - take the eleven minutes of 'Sick City' - a perfect example of the musician toning the whole thing down and still managing to sound intensively loud - even a somewhat more mid-paced, melodic piece as this sounding like he's thrown in the whole kitchen never mind just the sink. The three minutes of 'Curious' is symphonic synth heaven that is just sublime and gorgeous - loud, but sublime and gorgeous, while the near six minutes of 'Burning Bridges' returns to the unbridled intensity of the title track as your ears are assaulted to wondrous effect, one more time. This range then sums up the rest of the album - one almighty explosion of synth music immensity and intensity with solid core of melody and a human being set on stun, right at the heart of the machines. It's explosive, passionate, huge-sounding and the best electronic sonic soup of an album that I think I've heard in years - prepare your ears - Otaku is here!!
BRUNO SANFILIPPO: Ad Libitum CD
From Spain, and a close musical partner with similarly styled synthesist Max Corbacho, comes this latest release and, while it would be classed as "space" or "cosmic" music, it's really a good deal more varied than that term implies. For a start, most of the tracks have melodies running through them, or to be more accurate, have a strong thematic and melodic content that sets them apart as more than just space synth tracks. From tracks that have rhythms from acoustic and electric drums and percussion to tracks that simply soar and drift on layers of gorgeous synth landscapes, there's a whole host of soundworlds on this 9 track, fifty-three minute album. Musically there are obvious hints of people like Roach, Vangelis (the cosmic, spacey passages of Vangelis that is), Brennan (in particular only more varied), but throughout it all, there's both a warmth and a sensitive passion that resides at the heart of the music, and makes it so enjoyable. Whether, rhythmic or floating, each track has that sheer quality of existence that means you would be hard pressed not to play all of this every time you sit down to it. In short, essential listening.
KLAUS SCHULZE: X DBLCD
KLAUS SCHULZE: Mirage CD
OK - no messing - no arguments!! You have to replace your existing copies of these CD's!!! I'm sorry - I'm really very sorry - but that's all there is to it - you have to do it - just one of those things!!
You don't believe me? OK - trust me on this - buy a copy of 'X'. Get out your old copy of 'X'. Play the first six minutes of 'Ludwig II, Von Bayern' from the old disc. Then stop and insert the new disc - play the same track, same time - and watch as your jaw hits the floor. Is this a remaster, or is this a remaster!!!!
I would not have believed that you could make such a difference to such music that was recorded so well in the first place, but this is just staggering - and I'm only on one track!! Then you go to the rest of them, and it's the same - all amazingly remastered from the original analog tapes, and the effect is breathtaking, let alone the fact that the music is also just that, and totally timeless too. Much of 'X' could have been made last week, never mind 27 (yes, 27!!) years ago, while the space music of 'Mirage', although could only be out of the seventies, also has that quality running through it. Also on 'Mirage', a different version of the twenty-eight minute 'Velvet Universe' has been used, so completists shouldn't throw out the old vinyl or CD just yet. Each of the two "main albums" ('X' & 'Mirage') are essential listening for virtually all synth music fans, so I won't go into copious detail. But I will mention the, mostly previously unreleased, bonus tracks:
'Mirage' - nineteen minute track that predates the album by 6 months. Starts with organ then moves into something more reminiscent of 'Moondawn' with tinkling and driving sequencers, soaring lead synths and deep rivers of bass, not to mention a universe of string-like synths to flesh out the sound superbly, the whole thing going onward and upwards to glorious degree, ending with pulsing bass synths and a river of space, lead and string synths interweaving on top. A perfect piece to include on a perfect album.
'X' - twenty-one minute live version of 'Ludwig' called 'Objets d'Louis' that's recorded with a string orchestra who had no rehearsals, and if this isn't music flying on its feet, I don't know what is. Resemblances to the track that appeared on the album are many, but often, in particular, Schulze's case, he'll be off elsewhere in the cosmos, while the real violins and cellos bravely drive forth on the main themes and arrangements of the piece.
What you do get on 'X' that I hadn't spotted when I did the original review (thanks Bruce!!) is that the track 'Georg Trakl', originally only five minutes long, is not presented here in all its twenty-six minute glory - and what a tremendous piece this is - we're talking VINTAGE Schulze - if 'X' wasn't an awesome album anyway, the presence of this track, which in many ways hearkens back to the likes of 'Moondawn', just puts the icing on the cake - the thing flows with those classic deep strings, sparkling sequenced rhythms, light electro-percussive touches, soaring streams of synth layers and a sense of direction and range of texture that was, at the time, uniquely Schulze, somehow with a warm feeling centre that just draws you in to its gorgeously analogue heart. In many ways, it makes you think of Ash Ra's 'New Age Of Earth' album, as a track, too - it's got that altogether more blissful ethereal feel - and that is pretty sensational, believe me. So, even more reason for picking up this "revised" version - you know it makes sense!!
KLAUS SCHULZE: Dreams / Le Moulin De Daudet Each CD£13.99
Now, on the sleevenotes to 'Dreams' it says nothing about restoring or remastering - which would account for why the sound seems to me to be all but identical to the original album, shown up to even greater degree by the relatively recent bonus track, a twenty-four minute track from 2003 that, surprisingly, complements the album rather well. Previously sold as a limited edition CD in 2003, the track is actually quite superb, spending the first eight minutes in slowly building, layering, space-synth mould before a thunderous, mid-paced electro-percussive rhythm comes in and propels the whole thing along to perfection. The same thing with regard to any mention of remastering also applies to 'Le Moulin….', although here the sound is crystal clear and vibrant, and I'll lay odds on that someone's tweaked about with this, although I don't have an original with which to compare it. Musically, it's a film score which, although divided into many subsections, largely plays as one and is seriously filmic, in orchestral vein. The bonus track was recorded in 2004 as a fifteen minute piece specifically to be given away at a trade fair, and now presented to all the fans of the musician as a CD extra - in every way, it eclipses the main album, although oddly enough, it does sound very "score-like" in its construction, albeit more rhythmic, stronger and a lot more solid.
NIK TYNDALL/BERND SCHOLL: Dreamspheres CD
Imagine Kitaro recording for the Innovative Communications label back in the nineties and you're a long way towards getting an idea of the flavour of this CD, for it is a mix of unashamed melodic bliss combined with richly atmospheric soundscapes, many with a slight touch of the Far East to them, others with a more authentic Euro-mainland flavour. The rhythms tend to conform more to slowly flowing electronic drums, while the melodies tend to veer from bouncy to quite warm and flowing, all the while extra touches coming from assorted layers of guitar-like synths and cosmic sounding backdrops. It's all quite easy on the ear without conforming to pure syrup, although you could hardly call any of it particularly "substantial" in the forceful sense, but the idea is more to soothe than surprise, and on that level, it does work.
V/A: Awakenings 3CD Set
First off, you can't argue with the value for money factor here. Secondly, you can't argue with the fact that there is OVER TWO AND A HALF HOURS of previously unreleased tracks, exclusive to this CD from the likes of Vietgrove, Create, Radio Massacre International, Omega Syndicate, Air Sculpture, Glimmer Room, Ron Boots, Joint Intelligence Committee and more, with the rest devoted to album tracks and forthcoming album tracks. What you CAN argue with, is what I think about it. Taking CD1 - Binar, Create, Hyper Ex Machina, Vietgrove, RMI, Modulator ESP, 4m33s, Omega Syndicate & Awen - here you +get a quite amazing variety of synth music styles from the sheer melodic qualities of Binar via the seventies souped-up "Berlin School" of Create, through the harsh and uncompromising industrial space of RMI, the swirling sea of sequencers, string synths and bleak space that is Modulator ESP, the incredibly annoying hissing and tinkling that is the dreadfully cyclical 4m33s track to Omega Syndiate's take on FSP's take on seventies Tangerine Dream and more - mostly pretty classy stuff.
Then it's CD2 - Hyper Ex Machina get things off to a dreadful start with what sounds like some bright spark trying to mix an accelerated piano piece by JS Bach with a sequencer rhythm and coming out with something the equivalent of an aural Monty Python mickey-take. After this, Air Sculpture do their level best to make the backing to Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' sound somewhat more techno-y and I have to say that after three plays, I grew to like this one. Glimmer Room just continues to be alaw unto himself - total brilliance with a new track that has CLASS written all over its mix of ethnic, synth and ambience. From here, not a less than riveting track from the likes of Skin Mechanix (Sequencers on Stun but simply breathtaking), Second Thought, Awen, Ganzfeld, Ron Boots, Joint Intelligence Committee & Second Thought - apart from the opener, a thoroughly excellent CD.
Finally, it's CD3 - Opens with some space music before going into a twenty four minute track from Create and a twenty-seven minute track from Modulator ESP ending with a seventeen minute track from Omega Syndicate. Well, although I wasn't aware of it, some time into the Create track, I was beginning to become agitated so I checked the watch - gawd, only twelve minutes in - twelve to go - and the ideas wearing so thin you practically see through them. Lasted to about seventeen minutes - then forward to the Modulator track -here, same thing - bored to the extent of losing the will to live, I checked the watch - jeez, fourteen minutes still to go - yawno yawno - got to about twenty minutes and had more than enough - so to the finale - Omega Syndicate's unreleased track - that started with a thudding drum machine rhythm so one dimensional even a German Dance track would have rejected it, and didn't take long to become thoroughly irritating - but I stuck with it, hoping it would go away - so what do they do - add a pumping bass line to it at the same pace to make it even more annoying - then this cyclical melody comes on top and all you want to do is scream "stop". - but it doesn't - so, no matter what they put on top, you get this constant thudding thump resonating in your ears for the duration - ohhhhhhhh dear!!!
Should have been a double CD. Still worth getting even if it was.
This has been an opinionated review on behalf of the Andy G party!!!
