CARL WEINGARTEN: Blue Faith CD
I’ve played this four times now, before I even approached doing a review, not because it is difficult - far from it - but because it is such an amazing album, mere words just don’t do it justice. You have to experience it, dive in and allow its heady delights to enter every fibre of your artistic soul. It’s the sort of album that transcends categorisation, and the sort of album that deserves to be a best seller across the so-called developed musical world. Composed, played and guided by guitarist, Carl Weingarten, it proves to be so much more, with a guest list that includes the likes of Dan Reiter on cello, Joe Venegoni on percussion, Kat Epple on flute, Michael Manring on electric bass, Barry Cleveland on guitars and percussion, and many more. As a result, every track has a different flavour, adifferent sound, a different approach, but with a cohesive flow and feel to it all, a sense of heart and deep emotion that runs throughout. Like the Wollo album below, you could imagine much of it appealing to fans of the ECM label, but unlike that album, this has even more layers, sounds, interactions of instruments, multi-melodic qualities and dynamics. Whtehr acoustic or electric, the guitars are the stars, but the effect is dramatic, in many places conjuring images of Steve Tibbetts if you need a reference point, while elsewhere the qualities are more relaxing. All the tracks have a structure, a sense of melody a full sound, even in the most tranquil moments, and the quality of production and sound quality overall, is positively masterful, allowing you to hear every note and chord in crystalline clarity. From blazing furnace to warm emotive textures, this is an album of guitars, keys, percussion, bass, led music with assorted additives from flute, cello, trumpet, pedal steel, piano and violin that make the album such a masterpiece. A track-by-track, blow-by-blow account is not the issue here - this is a complete album of classic music that is timeless, for any occasion, and quite, quite awesome, as well as totally riveting and enjoyable listening. Pleasures in music don’t come much better than this.
ERIK WOLLO: Where It All Begins CD
Emanating from 1982, for the first time on CD, and with a bonus track in the form of half of the follow-up album, ‘Dreams Of Pyramids’, nearly twenty years on, this album sound every bit as fine as it did way back when. With a core line-up of Wollo on acoustic and electric guitars, plus oboe, keyboards, percussion and vibraphone, this is a truly magical instrumental album, one that would have sttled perfectly at home in the days when the ECM label was at its height, with many of the passages on this album proving to be an absolute delight to fans of musicians such as Terje Rypdal, John Surman, and similar. The winding melodies from the instruments and exotic drums/percussion, are genuinely timeless, the sort of music that will sound perfectly good in another twenty years, let alone now. If you have ever been into the most breathtaking moments of the ECM label or the tastier end of the melodic, atmospheric fusion market, then this is your sort of album, for sure. The bonus track gives more prominence to the synths, largely replacing the oboe, and its inclusion only serves to add to the gorgeous multi-textural delights of the album as a whole, maintaining the feel and atmosphere, but with keyboards and guitars as the new co-leads as the unbroken 20+ minute track sails onwards, with wondrous electric bass lines and delicate percussion work.
JIMMY AGREN:Get This Into Your Head CD
Smokin'....here is an electric slide and lead guitarist who tears the roof off. If, like me, you are of the firm belief that 'Big Eyed Beans From Venus' is Captain Beefheart at his best, and that sizzling, electric slide-dominated blues and the Howlin' Wolfinfluences contribute to seiously great blues-rock, then this CD, with its similarity to the aforementioned styles, is right up your alley and no mistake. Right down to the growling vocal, this is everything Mallard should hahve been but weren't, and this is actually so hot that if it wasplayed to you as some lost outtkes from the Beefheart era, you wouldn't question it. Throughout the CD, the guitar work just blows you away, and this is a genuinely classic album in its field. CONTINGENCE:Dominion CD Quite simply, this is the most sensational, explosive albums of industrial, metal-based electronic/electric music that I've heard in a long time, and has the same devastating effect as the very best Ministry or FLA. The sound is just vast, with huge rhythms from electric drums, perc, samples and synths, plus miles of electric guitars at maximum intensity settings and blood-curdling riffing powerwith a towering set of synth work creating mighty backdrops and propelling the compositions. The tracks are loaded with all manner of samples, adding even greater textural rnge and some really dark emotion to the incredible tracks that unfold. The music is solid throughout and positively nuclear force.But it is the sheer quality and careful attention to every last detail which puts this head and shoulders above its competitors in this musical field right now, smashing to pieces nearly all the opposition, full of ideas, attack, dynamics and pace. In short, a monster that you dare not ignore.
I reviewed this one year BEFORE it won the grammys....... THE WALLFLOWERS-Bringing Down The Horse CD - just so you know who was right all along, OK!!!! Fronted by Bob Dylan's son, it is the spirit of Tom Petty that sweeps through this album like a breeze. Right from the opening barrage of chugging rhythms, Petty-esque but lower vocals, soaring electric slide and surging lead guitars, plus teriffic harmonies on the chorus, you just know this is going to be good, and it doesn't disappoint. Everysong is a gem, with superb arrangements and poduction, hooks that won't let go, a clean yet almost Spector-ish intensity. Songs vary from power ballads to Petty style rockers that can't fail to move you. With influences from USA folk, rock and indie sectors, on songs that feature superb vocals, incisive lyrics and passionate delivery,this is an album that anyone into excellent American rock just has to own. Brilliant, dynamic, powerful, emotive, sensitive and it rocks like a demon. Full of guitars, miles of solos and harmony vocals, great choruses, solid rhythms - oh yes, plus a guest slot from Tom Petty - what more could you want!
AMBIENT/TRANCE/TECHNO, etc:
PLATEAU: Space Cake CD
The sort of techno album that makes you think that modern electronic music in this particular field is a good idea, after all. The opener gives the game away, with a lead line founded on a bed of faintly eeries layers of boinging synth melodies, exercising the use of percussive rhythms sparingly, but the brief moment when the drum programming kicks in, makes you go weak at the knees at the crunchy nature of it, only to have it taken away with equally dramatic effect. Track two then strats with the rolling electronic percussive rhythms, this time allowing the synth textures, layers and and effects to reside in the background as the hypnotic rhythms pave the way, with a thick crunchy sound to them that is in no way dance oriented and everything to do with a mix of decelerated industrial synth, melodic space techno and an ever expanding sense of stmosphere, not so much dark as twilight. With 16 tracks in nearly seventy minutes, this is an album that captures your attention like few in this field can manage. There is a rhythmic content throughout whose roots can be traced to the pioneers of German electronic music and Krautrock such as Can, Harmonia, while at the other end there’s a heady brew of industrial dynamics coming from the influences of Richard H Kirke, Controlled Bleeding and the like, while the richly coloured synths and electronics spread through and around the rhythms in a variety of disguises, but so addictive for such apparently uncommercial music. This is an electronic album that reinvents the genre and the way you may have approached this sort of music in the past, with a lot to take in, a long-lasting treasure trove of delights in store for those prepared to open their ears.
SHAMANIC TRIBES ON ACID: Future World CD
Fourth album and, interestingly, another take on the acid trance theme. Wheras the preceding album saw Jake putting everything into the machine and firing it off at gunfire intensity, this time he concentrates on the basic hard-core components of acid trance and plays around with more thunderous beats, squelchy synths, driving melodies and rock solid surround-sound passages to create a more structured and cohesive set of trancefloor stormers of which the melodies and tunes seem a lot more direct, so that while still founded on a certain basic level of deceptive repetition, the overall content of the tracks is a lot more involved and multi-layered than you’d normally credit with trance music at this sort of pace, as possessing by the bucketload, as is the case here. The thing is that here you have a set of barnstorming tracks that, while full of massive sequencers, synth rhythms and drums, have at their heart a varied and consistent set of tunes running through while the surround is taken up with huge layers of space synths,swoops, echoed synths and more, the result being a mix of adrenaline rush and wide-eyed enjoyment of a scorching set of tracks. Superb.
SUB OSLO: Dubs In The Key Of Life CD
Well, we’ve had dub reggae, dub remixes, and ambient dub, so how about contemporary dub, because that’s what’s on off here. For those that haven’t a clue, the style refers to the undulating, crunchy rhythms that stutter and flow allied to echoed effects from guitars and percussion all around the mix over which a variety of melodic rhythms and actual melodies flow forth while the lurching electric bass, clipped guitar figures and stumbling drums weave a rhythmic spell that is quite hypnotic, in a way a bit like a sparse decelerated Can without any vocals. Staying fairly close to their roots (!!!) the 6 long tracks showcase a variety of paces and moods within the dub style, never really getting too far-out or changing the content far away from what you’d expect out of a largely relaxed instrumental dub album with some excellent melodies and plenty happening in the mix. It’s ambient in the literal sense but always rhythmic and quite atmospheric.
V/A: Isca To Avalon CD
Described as ‘a trance journey through South West England’, this is actually a better album than that might imply and I’d go so far to say it’s actually a brilliant album.
With all-exclusive tracks from the likes of Global, N-Tropic, Banco De Gaia, Kangaroo Moon, Another Green World Vs Alien Mutation and four more, with every track a foot-tapping, melodic, solidly rhythmic, sequencer-driven, fast-flowing, tune-laden gem. The album starts with as solid a slice of ambient trance as you’ll hear, courtesy of Global, with a track that kicks into touch nearly all the recent output from the likes of Astralasia, System 7 and their partners, for this has it all - some superb, solid, crisp, driving synth/sequencer/percussive rhythms, a glorious set of melodic synth leads and rhythms, one seriously addictive wordless voice sample, gorgeous flowing string synths filling out the sound as a brief but absolutely wicked electric guitar solo crops up in the middle of it all. One amazing opening track that sets the scene perfectly for what is to follow as a whole host of ambient and trance mixtures across a wide range of highly satisfying styles and melodic/rhythmic layers come surging onto the horizon. Guaranteed to have you leaping about the place like a dervish, but at the same time working as some of the finest sequencer-driven trance around right now, this has the mix of rhythm, melody, finesse, crispness, strength, multi-layered synths, full-sounding arrangements and everything else, absolutely spot on. For anyone who likes sequencer and similar sounding synth rhythms, this album is manna from heaven and I could well imagine anyone into the latest Chicane album getting off on this splendid offering. For a mix of mellow trance with full-sounding, multi-layered ambience and so many gorgeous layers it’s untrue, the eleven minute Banco De Gaia track is a thing of great joy and utter genius with other tracks exercising the right to chill out as well, mixing the feel and mood with the more up-tempo numbers. Overall, though, this is one of the most enjoyable albums you’ll hear this year and if it’s the acceptable face of ambient-trance that you seek - trance music as a serious listening experience - then you simply cannot go wrong with this album - fantastic.
EURO-ROCK/CONTEMPORARY:
GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven DBLCD
Anyone who is into this band or may have even only just read about this band, won’t need me to tell you that the prospect for any reviewer, of covering a double CD by this band that consists of just 4 tracks, is not going to be an easy task unless you’ve got an hour to spend and the luxury of two full sheets of A4 size paper to hand. Suffice to say, that an album of this length and magnitude has no other alternative than to be simply awesome. This is a nine-piece band who are producing a sea of music that is full of new and different textures, ways of arranging and playing the likes of which you won’t have witnessed in many a long year, if at all, and their reputation that they have earned as being one of the only bands on the planet right now to play genuinely new and progressive music, is totally realised and justified on what has to be seen as one of the greatest albums of the year and, in years to come, one of the musical landmarks of the early twenty-first century. Everything about this album wreaks of class and quality, from the strings and samples on the more restrained and delicate moments through intense textures where the whole band produce some of the most amazing assemblage of music known to man, to all-out warfare on passages where the band goes supernova and the listener is just left open-mouthed at the sheer dynamics and emotion of the whole thing. It’s the sort of album that you have to experience, to dive into and to let it become part of you, time after time, as you constantly find new things in there and one that, once started, you will find hard-pressed to put down before you get to the end of the second CD. It is a truly incredible album and one that any music fan worth his or her salt, just has to hear - simple as that.
DAMO SUZUKI’S NETWORK: Odyssey DBLCD
Yet another excellently packaged, great sound quality, excellent value live double CD, this time taken from concerts at the tail end of ’99, with a ten-track, 141 minute set of tracks featuring a sextet that includes guitarist Dominik Von Senger, the USA space-rock musician Tommy Grenas, plus three people of drums, percussion and guitar/bass (no sax player this time out) and a set of brilliantly played, sung and delivered tracks that carry the Can/Suzuki torch, ever onwards.
GENERAL:
DAKOTA 45: Murdered By Insects CD
Ah this is what I like to see - the spirit of Jesus And Mary Chain at their best has not been lost to us forever, as the wall-of guitars-driven indie songs on this excellent album will testify. Using an almost whispered indie vocal that’s mixed at a similar level to the instrumnents, this is heady, brooding music but one that drives ahead in a blaze of guitars, thick and on fire, but dynamic and not at all overblown, at the same time. With a suitably strong electric bass and solid drumming support, this is one corking album, unafraid to change pace and dynamics, but with a set of songs that you will want to play for a long, long time to come, full of quality and warmth, while keeping the intensity level going throughout, at just the right setting. Brilliant.
GUITAR MUSIC/GREAT GUITARISTS:
DELAY TACTICS: Any Questions CD
From 1984, and now superbly digitally remastered for first-time CD issue, comes the side-project at the time, of guitarist Carl Weingarten, in trio format with Walter Whitney on synths and programming, David Udell on guitars, percussion and keyboards, plus guest Jim Mayer on bass on three tracks. Musically, it’s a vehicle for the guitarists to largely let rip on a set of tracks dominated by some searing electric guitar leads, rich synth textures and solid rhythmic programming, with a mix of full-sounding layers, synth leads and emotive guitars that evoke comparisons with the likes of Robert Fripp at one end, and Steve Tibbetts at the other, but this is self-composed, original and highly charged music with passion, grace and fire, that cooks up a storm but never loses sight of the melodic content on 10 tracks that average about 4-5 minutes in length, ensuring that no idea outstays its welcome. As a mix of electronics and guitars, it has some roots in the seventies, but largely in its own invention, sometimes a bit angular, sometimes a bit off-the-wall, but always flowing, never quite what you think you’ll get but sounding just fine, all the same.
ROY MONTGOMERY: The Allegory Of Hearing CD
Whoaah - now this is unusual. But it’s also fantastic. I’m no musician, so I can’t tell you what sort of guitar or guitar effect he’s using to create the sound that you’ll hear from this guitar throughout much of this album, but it’s like nothing else I’ve come across. For the first couple of tracks, there’s an electric bass that rumbles down below and gives depth to the tracks, while above this you’ll hear the lone guitar leads of Montgomery, multi-tracked presumably, sounding like a sort of guitar-sounding hurdy-gurdy at times, with drones, chords, notes and textures flying along like an aircraft on fire in slow motion, gliding through the air, maintaining its structure, but with bits flying off it at regular intervals. There’s an almost early Durutti Column-like feel to many of the pieces, and you could almost have seen this music emanating from the same stable - it’s got that sort of quality and feeling. Largely just guitar and bass, but with a sound that gives the impression of a lot of guitars at work, this is a most extraordinary and exquisite work of instrimental guitar music, as I said, quite unique in today’s music scene, but lovely stuff all the same.
PROG-ROCK:
KASEKE: Poietus+Sonum CD
It’s amazing what drops through your door somedays - I mean, who’d have thought that an instrumental progressive fusion band from Estonia would turn out to be one of the most sensational discoveries in the genre. But that’s the case with this album as a fiery CD based around the dual attack of two electric guitarists, and no less than five keyboards/synth players cropping up on selected tracks, all backed up by some of the most solid rhythm work from bassist and drummer, all proceed to deliver an album full of swirling flowing Hammonds, spiralling lead guitars, muscular melodies and tracks that sound really composed rather than just jams or vehicles for soulless soloing. A flute player adds a bit of extra texture in several places, but the limelight is firmly shared by the keyboards and electric guitars. It really is prog-rock moreso than fusion but both sets of fans should really fall in love with this. The playing is expressive throughout, the tracks have bite and finesse, it’s all well produced and positively glows. Good, solid prog fusion and long-lasting, too - can’t argue with that.
PSYCHEDELIC/SPACE-ROCK/STONER:
ALAN DAVEY: The Final Call CD
Brand new studio album……………not to be confused with the new Bedouin album. It’s being released on the CD Services own Centaur label, but at the time of doing this review, Alan is in the process of adding a couple of tracks to and taking one away from the original CD-R of the album he provided to us, so this review may well include a track that isn’t going to be on the final version, and is missing some that are. That said, it’s a way more cohesive album than the ‘Chaos Delight’ CD without a wasted moment on the entire album. Starting with an instrumental that consists of five minutes of driving space-rock revolving around his strong electric bass, banks of synth layers, throbbing sequencer style rhythm, all managing to combine space and power, but with the added touch of wordless Arabic style chants in the distance, at the beginning as the track opens out, giving a sense of real atmosphere to the track as the drums emerge, the bass and guitar drive forward and the piece takes off - a superb opener. After this, comes a spacey track revolving around all manner of synth, electronic, percussive and bass effects that’s really ‘out there’ and totally unlike any other space-rock style around. Track three opens with a mix of synth wind effects and organ-like drones, to which flowing synth lines are added, filling out the sound, creating a really strong sense of deep space atmospherics as sounds come and go around the main heart of the piece, which gradually builds and billows out majestically to the end. Track four starts with echoed drums, a deep bass undercurrent and a gorgeous string synth lead, providing a feel that is positively heartwarming, while at the same time continuing the space/emotional feel of the album, again a touch of the Arabic being heard in the percussion while the synths just fill out all around creating a truly wondrous slice of instrumental brilliance with synth choral effects worthy of seventies T.Dream and as wide-eyed a set of satisfying, flowing synth layers as you’ll find. Track five is a more amorphous piece of synths-dominated instrumental music with a really deep bass line rumbling along underneath while assorted synth layers, textures and effects, rumble, soar, swoosh and bubble away to create a really dark sea of deep space music for nearly four minutes before the album suddenly launches into a classic slice of Hawkwind-esque space-rock, only dominated by synths, electric bass and electronic drums as opposed to electric guitars. Track seven is even more driving space-rock as we get a totally solo version of Davey’s classic Hawksong ‘Sputnik Stan’, here with some rampaging bass work leading the way while drums, synths and synth swooshes/effects fill out the mix in classic ‘Silver Machine’ fashion, in fact this would have made a great follow-up to that track, all those years ago - it’s got that sort of feel and atmosphere and sense of urgency mixed with a space-rock sensibility that few others can exhibit - awesome for nearly seven minutes. Finally, for the review of the music we have, you’ll hear another slice of chugging space-rock, this time with a resonant undulating synth bass line circling overhead, while a crunchy lead guitar takes centre stage as the more dynamic percussive and steaming electric bass wind through the cauldron of delights, with synth textures and space effects. That’s it - one gem of an album for sure, essential for space-rock, synth and Hawkwind fans alike.
DR HASBEEN: The Time Gauntlet CD-ROrder now from CD Services
Now with all his manufacturing problems behind him (the ‘Afterlife’ CD-R’s are now fault-free for those who want to buy any), here comes a brand new album, part-live, part-studio, with all the hallmarks of space-rock songs and driving instrumental passages, along with an insightful set of lyrics, that makes this band such an up and coming force in UK space-rock circles. With eleven original tracks, this is again a step up for the man who now does all the playing himself, a veritable one-man space-rock army.
QUARKSPACE: Spacefolds 6 CD
The incredible value-for money series continues……this time with a studio album as opposed to the last live album, and with a proper colour cover to boot. Musically, it eclipses the splendind height of Spacefolds 5’ with a seventy-three minutes of instrumental tracks that take the space-rock/psych genre to new dimensions. The eight minute opener launches things in suitably strong fashion, with swirling synths, seaing slide guitar, vast washes of string synths, a chugging rhythm section that drives the whole thing forward and a massive slice of melodic, powerful space-rock unfolds with guitar work and synths climbing higher and higher, the sound quality being absolutely perfect and the delivery spot on, so much so that you wish it could have gone on for even longer. But when you hit track two, you breathe a sigh of relief to find that it is actually doing just that, as the feel, sound and drive of the opener is continued on another full-sounding slice of atmospheric space-rock, this time with the bass a little more prominent, some neat space synth touches as the mood chills out at the half way point, gorgeous early ‘70’s Hawkwind style synth touches as they swoop and soar round the central framework, while chiming guitar leads, echoed guitar, resonant bass combine to create a section of genuine rhythm-free space-rock that would not have sounded out of place on any of the early Hawkwind albums. Superb. With 6 more tracks, three of which are over eleven minutes long, and the whole feel, sound and delivery of the music remaining at these consistently excellent levels throughout, this is one of the best ever instrumental cosmic-rock albums around, and at this price, a totally essential purchase as well as a great long-term listening experience of maximum enjoyment.
V/A: Thousand Days Of Yesterdays - A Tribute To Captain Beyond CD
Now, the disadvantage of reviewing a tribute album to such an obscure band as this (and you have to ask yourself why it's been done in the first place) is that you can't really say how good or bad it is compared to what it's meant to sound like (possibly the whole point - I don't know), but the advantage is that you can just listen to it all and then say 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down'. To my great surprise, this is most definitely 'thumbs up' and I really must find one of the Capatin Beyond albums just to see if what I'm hearing here is better or worse. If worse, then Captain Beyond must be one hell of a rock band, because this thing is smoking prog-metal with feet in both camps and it rocks. The guitar and synths work throughout is exemplary, and the consistency of enjoyment incredibly high. The arrangements and production are vast and loud while the vocals throughout work a treat. NOT ONLY THAT, but you'll find an exclusive ten minute track from Flower Kings and a track from Five Fifteen that includes ex-Hawkwind sax man Nik Turner blowing a fine solo in the track. Other bands featured are Lotus w/ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson, Locomotive Breath, Standarte and more.
ROCK/METAL/AOR:
V/A: Bat Head Soup - A Tribute To Ozzy Osbourne CD
Here at CDS Towers, Phil, our resident guitarist, thought this was a pile of dingo’s kidneys. ‘No emotion…just perfunctory…old men trying to be young again’ were just a few of the comments unleashed in a hail of abuse. Now he’s an Ozzy fan….and I’m not.
Now I’m not going to say that this album is a classic tribute album, but where it’s good (about two thirds of the thing), it burns with fiery delight. I mean, just listen to the quartet of Lemmy, Richie Kotzen, Tony Franklin & Vinnie Colaiuta roar through ‘Desire’ and you’ll see a rendition that positively pees all over the original, with guitar work to die for an Lemmy’s traditional pumping bass and growling vocals on a sea of killer riffs and steamroller rhythms. This is followed by the quartet of Dee Snider, Doug Aldrich, Tony Levin & Jason Bonham oozing sleaze rather than mystery on a searing version of ‘Crazy Train’. Next up is the ballad ‘Goodbye To Romance’, here performed by a quintet of Lisa Loeb on lead vocals, plus musical backup from Mike Porcaro, Dweezil Zappa, Stephen Lerrone & Michael Sherwood, turning something that always sounde dodd in the hands of the Ozzmeister, into a stirring power ballad with a hot and yearning guitar solo over the gorgeous multi-tracked female vocals, on a song that’s got sod all to do with Ozzy musically in this context but as a song in its own right , is just a gem. The version of ‘Hellraiser by a quintet featuring a dream lead trio of Joe Lynn Turner, Steve Lukather & Billy Sherwood ought to blow your metallic socks off, but surprisingly turn in an AOR vesion that still blows your socks of but not the way you had expected, with a metallic AOR giving the song a quality it never previously had and ending up sounding way better than the original. ‘Shot In The Dark works a treat the way that Scott Soto, Bruce Kulick, Ricky Phillips, Phil Torpey & Derek Sherninian have delivered it, better in the chorus sections than the lead vocal lines, but still working well. Taking on Sabbath’s ‘Children Of The Grave’ would be a brave move by anyone’s standards, but here the line-up of Jeff martin, Paul Gilbert, John Alderele & Scott Travis miss by a country mile. It’s heavy with some steaming guitar but the feel’s disappeared completely somewhere along the line. Then, for the perpetrators best not named, to take on ‘Paranoid’ is an equally terrible error. A quartet of guys I’ve never heard of take on ‘Suicide Solution’ and it’s the only time that anything comes close to identikit Ozzy on the album, even down to using a sample of the man’s vocal on the track, and it works exceedingly well, taken a tad slower but more intense with some blazing guitar work in the fray. Finally the Blades-Beach-Pilson-Blotzer-Taylor quintet deliver ‘I Don’t Know’ and it’s a killer, staying relatively faithful to the pace and ferocity of the original and ending the album inm a hail of rifle-fire riffs and soaring vocals, all the time the rhythm section (as throughout the album) sounding suitably powerful. So, with a couple of faceless but fine tracks opening the album, I have to disagree with Phil yet again - well worth the price and great if you love heavy metal and dislike Ozzy Osbourne.
SYNTH MUSIC:
ETERNAL WANDERERS: 2000 CD-R Order now from CD Services
Two sisters from Russia produced this album and it opens like something out of the second and third albums from the Cosmic Jokers with swirling synths and Gille Lettman style echoed voice, creating a really spacey seventies feel for the first three minutes. The eleven minute track two opens with synths, guitars and percussion that gives it a feel of restrained seventies ‘Saucerful’ era Floyd with a slight trace of Hawkwind, until a string synth emerges, takes over and then just as suddenly gives way to a lone electric piano lead, distant synth backdrop and a somewhat Nico-meets-Duul’s Renate female vocal, as the sound fills up with synths, string synths, drums and multi-tracked female vocal, giving the impression of a synth panorama with the Renate-like vocals as the track surges forward, and actually works a treat. In fact if seventies Amon Duul 2 had been a synth band, I’ll lay odds on this might have been the result. Instead the synth work has elements of everything from Synergy at one end through to Floyd at the other, with a cooking electric guitar popping up briefly to add even more texture and feel to the huge sound that ensues, all very much space-rock with the emphasis on synths rather than guitars and drums, the presence of the excellent vocals giving it a wholly unique and highly rewarding flavour on what is one of the star tracks on the album. Track three begins with a neat piano/synth intro, using big chords from the former and stirring undercurrents from the latter, as a cymbal crashes and a thudding sequencer rhythm begins, drums cruise in and a massive string synth lead takes centre stage. Then, totally by surprise, a jaunty melody line is heard as the piece intensifies, adds synths leads and crashing drums to the rhythms and finally an almost Wakeman/Emerson-like prog synth style solo emerges, the track twisting and turning ideas that straddle synth and prog for much of its near on eight superb minutes on an instrumental synths-dominated track that really woks, again with a pronounced Synergy flavour only less sweet, less classical, with more of an edge and plenty of musical ideas in the melting pot. The close-on ten minute track four is another one where the female vocals and synths take the stage to become the lead dimensions as horizon-stretching synth layers give way to haunting melodies and languid rhythms from drums and electronics, before the songs returns and a kind of torch song style slowly drives through. About half way through, again a short lead electric guitar line emerges before returning to the synths dominate fanfare that opened the album as the song section comes along albeit in a slightly different form this time, as relaxed melodies give way to a mix of sprightly tunes and solsid rhythms. Track five, at over eleven minutes, is a really haunting, dark slice of space music with synths, echoed electronics, percussive effects and one massive synth central framework giving more the feel of some mighty gothic synth act such as Raison D’etre only without the drums and more sparse, yet just as dynamic. The album ends with just under five minutes of a rather more down-to-earth synth/guitar song called ‘Space’, ironically enough, that is actually quite lovely, a bit of a subdued end from what’s gone before, and not the greatest of tracks or endings, but after the wealth of ideas just experienced, makes some kind of sense, I suppose.
So, overall, a very entertaining and highly engaging album that actually promises much - some label ought to get hold of these two because there’s definitely a lot of great ideas waiting to come out.
EUROCK CD-ROM
THE GOLDEN AGE: CD-ROM
A Multimedia CD featuring 40 minutes of music, 25 minutes of audio/video music from the Euro-rock archives, enhanced with CD-ROM technology - a complete Audio/Visual experience.
Described as ‘A History of Music from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe, Japan, South America and points beyond’, this item, three years in the making, is one of the most indispensable multi-media releases in the Euro-rock/synth and beyond fields of music. For anyone not around in the ‘70’s/’80’s, Eurock was the name of the first ever magazine, started by one of Euro/Kraut-rock’s leading visionaries, Archie Patterson, devoted exclusively to serious listening cult music away from the mainstream and which was to go on to take the world by storm and influence countless hundreds of bands down the years. This CD-ROM contains the entire contents of all 47 issues of the magazine. But there’s more….so much more.
The Music: Since 1980, Japanese master musician Hiro Kawahara has been exploring the realms of electronic and progressive music (not prog-rock) releasing albums as leader of the groups Osiris, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, and more recently, Heretic. His new album, featured exclusively on ‘The Golden Age’, contains 40 minutes of music recorded between 1980 and 1999. A dense Zen electronic tone poem, it echoes the work of such luminaries as Kitaro, Steve Roach & Robert Fripp, yet has a distinct quality that puts it in a category all its own.
The Video: ‘The Golden Age’ features 25 minutes of 16-bit, digitized audio/video by Amon Duul 2, Popol Vuh & Urban Sax, again all exclusive to this multi-media extravaganza.
The Magazine: ‘The Golden Age’ contains 1100 articles, 300 rare photos, 1200 reviews, 350 discographies, a complete index. In addition, there is a brand new issue of Eurock magazine. It contains recent articles and interviews featuring some of Europe’s original journalists and musicians who created the scene, including Manuel Gottsching, Klaus Schulze, Christian Vander, David Elliott, Mani Neumeier, K D Muller, Andy Garibaldi and loads more.
An absolutely amazing item, just as, if not even more, indispensable than the Freemans’ ‘Cosmic Egg’ book, this is something special that mere words cannot begin to describe and the most enjoyable and unique CD-ROM you’ll come across.
LUCIFAERE: The Midnight Tree DBLCDOrder now from CD Services
The new album from a certain Jim Kirkwood whose debut proved to be rather lacking, to say the best. But this is altogether something else. The first album consists of four lengthy tracks and over an hour’s worth of music, that covers ground from spacey and haunting through dark and eerie to retro-synth passages as echoed by the likes of Arcane/Air Sculpture/Navigator and the like. Despite the fact that, even with sequencers and synths flying, it rarely sounds particularly heavy although the deep resonant sounds are present in abundance, and the retro brigade will find it more than satisfying. At least throughout the album there is an attempt to keep the music varied, preferring to leap from mood to mood, style to style, all fundamentally within a seventies-feeling framework, mostly rhythmic, but pretty consistent. The opener on disc two is a nine minute sucker punch, hitting when you least expected it, and really coming on strong with some wicked rhythms and melodies. The next track is a massive half-hour blast of retro-style sequencers and synths, with a pronounced eastern influence at the beginning, over the synth swoops and undulating rhythms, that gradually intensifies, but then around the eleven minute point, goes to a very dark and brief cosmic passage for five minutes or so, before a new line in sequencer rhythms, booming synth bass and squally melodies, start up once again and the track begins to build. This pattern of events of changing musical horizons continues, quite riveting on first hearing but ultimately long-lasting enjoyment- well, only time will tell. The final track at over twenty minutes long, again has a pronounced ethnic feel to it and lord knows what people into the more retro side of synth music will make of this, where the sequencers and synths slowly appear above the strong drum rhythms, eventually taking over and creating a flowing piece of music where high-register synth lines are heard on top of the strong synth/drums rhythmic backdrop. Again, on first hearing it sounds great, but you do get the feeling that it won’t be something you’d want to get out an play that often once you’d heard it the once, meaning that there’s something lacking in there somewhere but you can’t quite put your finger on what’s missing - perhaps more of an emotional feel would be a help. Either way, it’s a neat album that does sound different from most of its compatriots on first hearing.
MAITREYA: From The Mothership CDOrder now from CD Services
Twelve tracks of finely crafted, full-sounding space-cosmic synths music that will have a definite appeal to anyone who bought the recent albums by Vir Unis and Exuviae on the Greenhouse label, or anyone into the more beautiful cosmic music of Steve Roach, those who get on with most things on the Hypnos label and anyone who wants superbly sounding classic albums of gorgeous, flowing space synth music. With a few scene-setting tracks beginning the album, by track four you are in the presence of some of the most full-sounding, magnificent, drifting space music, that has an almost melodic content, a slightly darker side, plenty of bass undercurrent and yet which has a really optimistic feel to it, a feel that continues throughout the album, on one of the finest space synth music albums of the year to date.The sound is big so that you cannot in any way call it a droning style of music, as thick rivers of cosmic synths weave some of the most spellbinding patterns you’ll hear. Superb.
ROBERT RICH/ALIO DIE: Fissures CD
A breathtaking slice of deep space synth music that mixes the deep waves of dark synth layers with lots of atmospheric lead layers courtesy of moody, sonorous synths, samples, rivers of soothing electronic, choral ambience conjuring images of deep space mid-‘70’s T.Dream, and the odd glimpse of tastefully used resonant clay pot percussives on track two, but otherwise it’s a cosmic trip that just takes you ‘out there’ but has a hheart and is full of sensuous waves of sonic delight.
MICHAEL STEARNS: Floating Whispers CD
This was an album that, at the time of its original release, I tended to dismiss as a bit twee, too sugary and not enough depth, preferring to stay on the more melodic, new-age side of things. Now, 13 years on, it gets a reissue and I get another chance to say……….it’s still sweet, melodic and twee. True, it’s full of atmosphere and full-sounding synth layers but it’s all icing and no cake - it may have heart but it’s got no soul. Far too pretty for my liking.
MICHAEL STEARNS: Lyra Sound Constellation CD
In terms of darkwave space music played on something that isn’t a synth but sounds like a synth, albeit a synth attached to the tones of a sampled, decelerated lawnmower and what sounds like the slow-motion stirrings of a set of creaky bedsprings, then this is the ultimate result. All very strange, eerie and hypnotic.
V/A: Soundscape Gallery Vol 2 CD Hardly new but I’d not reviewed it before so I had alsiten to it and it really is something very hot that I’d missed out on. For a start, all the tracks are exclusive to this release. Then you find that most of them are of a decent length. Then the list of artists itself reads like a who’s who of cosmic, space and melodic atmospheric music with Alpha Wave Movement, Jeff Pearce, Michael Stearns, Bon Lozaga (ex-Gong), Michel Huygen, Caul, Meg Bowles, Mathias Grassow, and the only name I didn’t know before, Hans Christian. Musically, we’re talking largely rhythm-less space and cosmic synth music in a myriad of forms, from the darkness of the Caul track to the more heavenly layers of Huygen’s, with only the Hans Christian track having any real rhythmic qualities. For fans of the music of artists such as Grassow, Roach, Obmana and similar, this is another essential purchase and a neat study that illustrates the rich sounding variety in space music that many do not realise is so vst and so absorbing - very atmospheric and quite wonderful.
WAVE WORLD: Structures CD
The opener sets the scene with three minutes or so of swirling multi-synths cosmic music that sounds really great and tempts you to move on to the next track in a sense of high anticipation. That anticipation is rewarded on a near thirteen minute slice of thick-sounding space-synth music that has qualities ranging from dark and ethereal to high-flying and expansive, sometimes more atmospheric, sometimes more melodic, but always interesting and delicious. Then it’s on to the mammoth twenty-five minute third track where the first nine minutes or so is largely of the full-sounding cosmic persuasion, until a solid but relatively slow drum rhythm emerges, a string synth backdrop spreads itself all over the place and high-register melodies complete the picture. Around the thirteen minute point, the whole canopy disappears as a twittering synth and then a similarly paced , more solid drum rhythms are heard and the mood changes with adistinctly oriental flavour to the melodies over a more chunky ‘90’s western set of ambient synth rhythms. This gradually adds deep bass, more echoed synths, flowing acrs of melodies and soundscapes to build to what is overall, an extremely fine track, a bit Klaus Schulze/Namlook in feel and sound, and really satisfies. On StructuresII’ at nearly fourteen minutes, for the first six minutes or so, you get another widescreen space music setting before delicate sequencer and synth rhythms emerge from the depths and a piece that’s somewhere between Schulze and Tangerine Dream begins its journey. Shortly joined by a thoroughly resonant drum track, the rhythms really begin to solidify and build as more echoed and lead synth melodies are heard on top and the whole piece really drives forward, adding, and occasionally subtracting, layers of musical soundscapes as it progresses. A further fifteen and seven minute tracks, of a similar musical and emotive persuasion as what’s gone before, complete what is a pretty fine album.
