SEQUENCES ISSUE 28
The new issue of the UK's leading synthesizer music magazine, Sequences, is now available. As well as all the news and reviews, the magazine features interviews with Frank Van Bogaert, Ash Ra's Harald Grosskopf and more, there's an article on the quest for the ultimate sequencer, but,just as important, you get a seventy-nine minute CD of exclusive synth music tracks by artists known and unknown, from around the world, including UK's Mike Andrews, plus Team Metlay Unbroken, Nebula Drone, Navigator, E-Motion, ex-SBB leader Josef skrzek and more, a total of eleven artists altogether and, musically, better than many "normal" synth music CD's around today.
SEQUENCES: Issue 31 MAGAZINE+CD
New look issue with an A5 size and, it has to be said, punchier looking magazine, housed inside a DVD sized plastic case with a bonus CD to boot - and it's all rather excellent. For a start, the magazine features an exclusive interview with Robert Schroeder, an interview with the guy out of Synthetik, the usual pages of album reviews and more. The CD is a staggering seventy nine minutes long and is one of the finest CD's of music that the magazine has ever issued. The opening track from Indra is truly mind-blowing and you can see why Mick put this on first. It take sequencers into a whole new dimension where others couldn't even dream of going - how on earth the guy gets the sound of the sequencers and accompanying electro-percussive rhythm to sound almost ethnic is unreal, but this solid rhythm just drives forward as all around synths dive and swoop, while above that assorted melodies fly sky-high and the whole thing has a solid structure to it that really makes you sit up, take notice and want to go out and buy the album immediately - but it's a preview track, so you can't - instead you'll just have to play all magnificent fourteen minutes of this piece, over and over again right here. After this track, you feel it's almost immaterial what the rest sounds like, but then it's the turn of Masami Asahina, another name new to me, a Japanese female living in the USA and producing unashamedly romantic space synth music that evokes the sort of music which used to come out on Hearts of Space label in the eighties - all lush, string-laden, full sounding and dreamy with added piano ripples to accompany the gorgeously drifting and flowing synths, five minutes of heaven. The Alpha Wave Movement track took me by surprise - a band I can usually take or leave this is a rhythmic track with heart and soul, solid and propulsive with a distinctly Moroccan feel to it as drums and sequencer rhythms, strings and leads all evoke the sound of the Middle East on a track that is simply spellbinding, the only shame being that it only lasted five minutes. Even though there isn't a bad track on the CD, other highlights include the magnificent, sequencer-laden eight minutes from Volt, recorded live at the "E-Live" festival in 2005 and sounding just spectacular, the near ten minute Ian Boddy track recorded live at "The Gathering Concert Series" in 2004, the seven minutes of solid space music that is the live exclusive from Craig Padilla & Skip Murphy as well as tracks from Ramp, Stephen Parsick, Kelvin Smith, Synthetik & Etherfysh.
All in all, a spectacular CD and a great read - the project goes from strength to strength.
Sequences Web Site
Send me an e.mail
CD Reviews
Home Page