BRAINTICKET

The legitimate Brainticket sound has been found!

It's amazing to think how little time it took the band to reinvent themselves and completely change the musical concept, as Cottonwoodhill was released in 1971 as well as this album, only a few months apart. Here the band seems to have grown up a lot, providing more uplifting and creative music, achieving a nurturing and welcoming terrain of open nature through unusual instruments such as the tbilat and slide whistle. I am compelled to say that I find the flutes played by Joel Vandroogenbroeck and Martin Sacher very pleasing. In fact, for the year of the album's release, I am surprised at how forward-thinking they are!

Certain songs like Radagacuca or Like A Place In The Sun (my favourite on the album) remind me a lot of the early days of CAN.

It's very striking how much progress they've made in so few months. I think as soon as they released the album (or even before they did), they knew the band sounded too electronic and with a lot of missing principles that needed to be moulded. They have gone from a tedious, incomplete and lacking in personality to a more spiritual, pure and mature sound.

Sure, the band is still the same and you can tell it's them, but here they have taken an unexpected leap in quality and the nature of the sound is much more apparent. Great addition to the musical culture of any fan of progressive rock and its derivatives.

I'm still trying to look for special aspects of Krautrock to really hold on to this sector sentimentally in some way. This initial album from the Swiss has its charm but you can tell that their sound has not yet matured and the band is still searching for it.

On the opening tracks "Black Sand" and "Places of Light" much of the fun is scattered, with almost no vocal intervention. From the outset it can be inferred that this is and will be a very electronic album despite its classical instruments (which seem to play in the background anyway and get overshadowed by the electronic sounds).

Almost the entire remainder of the album is taken up by an extended and quirky 26-minute song divided into three parts and titled with the band's name. The definitive voice that seals the extravagant style of this song belongs to Dawn Muir, who plays an experimental and risky role by singing without singing: She talks, she sobs, she moans, she rages, but she doesn't sing! Perhaps this has influenced Irene Papas and Aphrodite's Child to create the very strange song "Infinity (symbol)". The instrumentation of the song is very poor: Despite the unrelenting Krautrock characteristic based on eternal extensions, it is a tedious riff that fails to create the atmosphere it is meant to create.

3 stars seems to me a fair score for the debut album of this band that on their next album would reach a higher level.

Although the songs of Celestial Ocean segue from one to the next, to me the album has three phases. The first is the hypnotic opening song, "Egyptian Kings," is a promising slice of Krautrock: melodic and odd, based on a psychedelic groove reminiscent of Amon Düül II. The the overdubbed spoken words of Brainticket members Carole Muriel, Barney Palm, and Joel Vandroogenbroeck weave in and out of the track, which is the high point of the album. The final song, "Visions," represents a distinct third phase. "Visions" begins with a Vandroogenbroeck piano workout unlike anything else on the album, almost like "Cans and Brahms" on Fragile. While it sounds very little like Wakeman, and nothing at all like "Cans and Brahms," the first three-and-a-half minutes of "Visions" is nonetheless a showcase with no apparent relation to either the album's theme or the musical style of the foregoing pieces. On its own, though, this showcase - - and "Visions" as a whole - - is very good. In both respects is resembles "Egyptian Kings," and I'm only being slightly facetious when I suggest that an "Egyptian Kings" / "Vision" single would've been preferable to the entire album.

At twenty-seven minutes, the six-song heart of Celestial Ocean seems to comprise a cohesive album, though not a very good one.  It opens with four minutes of seemingly aimless guitar strumming and flute and synth noodling - - apparent filler, to my ears. The "Jardins" → "Rainbow" → "Era of Technology" suite-within-a-suite ends with an electronic section with which the vocals recommence. These three songs represent a microcosm of Celestial Ocean, which intersperses occasional acoustic or electronic parts between hybrid passages. "To Another Universe" is a case in point, opening with electronics over a driving tom-tom rhythm and closing to a Mellotron motif playing over an acoustic guitar. This song is also the last in which vocals play a significant role.

The meandering "The Space Between" and the atmospheric "Cosmic Wind" are oddly happy-sounding new-age slapdashery seemingly out of place on an album dealing with a a mysterious theme. Also odd is the use of western scales here and throughout most of the album. I'm no music theorist, but apparently there are Arabic modes and scales which might have been a better fit. Further separating the music from the theme is the dearth of spoken word in the eighteen-minute stretch from "The Space Between" until the last minute of "Visions."

In short, Celestial Ocean sounds like the result of some talented and very creative people getting their hands on some newfangled synthesizers and a bunch of studio time. Cleopatra Records declares it "the definitive album from Krautrock electronic pioneers, Brainticket!," but I genuinely hope this isn't the case, especially given the potential demonstrated in "Egyptian Kings."

I remembered back in 2000 a brand new Brainticket album, first time since Voyage in 1982. Since that time Joel Vandroogenbroeck recorded tons of library albums on the Coloursound label. By 1984 he moved to Mexico (as he was sick and tired of shoveling snow in the Swiss Winters) where he's lived ever since. I was happy that Joel teamed up once again Carole Muriel, but instead of a modernized Celestial Ocean it was clear that they were trying far too hard to reach the kids by exploring techno. That is those same preprogrammed beats and crummy digital synthesizers that make me never fond of that genre. Sure Ozric Tentacles explored techno but never forgot real guitars, drums and synthesizers and plenty of that rock attitude so their techno explorations never bothered me. Joel could have learned a thing or two from the Ozrics at the time. I have to be honest, I gave this plenty of chances and it left me cold. Thank God, 15 years later comes Past, Present and Future which was a giant relief for me as the techno was ditched and the guitars, drums, real keyboards and psychedelic approach returned. For me, Alchemic Universe is a demonstration why I dislike techno in general. It simply sounded too much like Joel was having a midlife crisis. To me any of their other albums are better and worth getting.

Brainticket opened my eyes to how many top shelf obscure progressive rock groups there are out there. There latest offering, Past Present and Future, comes fifteen years after 2000's Alchemic Universe which saw Joel, the leader, try to fuse his vision with contemporary European dancefloor rhythms. I came around to it, but it generally seems to be regarded as the weakest Brainticket album. If that was the weakest, this must be its polar opposite. This is krautspace 2015 with the emphasis on rock. The Dancing on a Volcano twofer runs through all the progressive gauntlets and emerges victorious. The second *side* showcases jammy guitar and swirling synth songs that work well low volume or on 11. It took me a while to appreciate the depth of this album but it really will reward the dedicated prog rock fanatic. My only quibble is the female lyrics are dispensed by what I'd classify as an amateur. It would seem Joel snuck into the nearest high school and grabbed the first girl (not woman) to add lyrical color to his record. It doesn't detract from the glory for me too much as the music created is awe inspiring. My favorite track has become Reality of Dreams 4.5 stars

It's always hard to get a handle on a band that reinvents itself for every album, but in truth the second LP from the Switzerland-based Brainticket was made by an entirely different group than the one that recorded "Cottonwoodhill" in 1971. Only multi-instrumentalist Joel Vandroogenbroeck remained from the original lineup; his erstwhile bandmates were likely still under medical care after surviving the borderline insanity of that earlier session.

Hearing both albums back-to-back (and they were packaged as such in at least one reissue) can be a tremendous letdown. The band's sophomore effort is a lot more inhibited than "Cottonwoodhill", but let's face it: outside of a tightly-knit straightjacket few things could possibly compare to such an extreme experience.

But just because the music was on a tighter leash is no reason to dismiss it. On its own terms "Psychonaut" is a more or less typical scrapbook of early '70s Head etiquette, complete with tablas, sitar, and Good Vibes, the latter an actual performance credit (along with "Strange Sounds"). Considered in isolation, the album is creative, unpredictable, and sometimes even exciting, from the heavy Krautrock-cum-early Tull jam in "Coc'O Mary" to the atypically haunting "Feel the Wind Blow" to the mildly lysergic flute curlicues in the opening "Radagacuca", later sampled (without acknowledgement) by fanboy Steve Wilson in his faux-LSD trip "Voyage 34".

The full effect never quite lives up to the album's awesome title or Bosch-like artwork. And the long shadow of "Cottonwoodhill" continues to linger over every note, even now. But that's okay: after such an untethered freakout the milder highs of "Psychonaut" can be a welcome relief.

There are some strange musical releases have emerged since the dawn of the recording industry but some are certainly stranger than others. It's always a fine balance, that is to find an utterly alien way of expressing oneself through the possibilities of sound and another matter completely to keep the alienating feel while adding just the right amount of elements that entice the listener to experience it unto completion. While formed in Switzerland with a diverse grouping of different European musicians, BRAINTICKET was the brainchild of Belgium born Joel Vandroogenbroeck whose study of classical and jazz went astray as the psychedelic 60s hit full force, leading him into temptation which ultimately led to the forbidden psychedelic fruit that led to his Krautrock infused band BRAINTICKET. The debut COTTONWOODHILL was famous in the psychedelic scene that the original LP sleeve carried the following warning: "After Listening to this Record, your friends may not know you anymore" and "Only listen to this once a day. Your brain might be destroyed!" While that may have been a nice gimmicky exaggeration and perhaps more true in the year 1971 when it was released, it does however portend to the listener that they are in for one demented, explorative and crazy piece of work.

By some COTTONWOODHILL is one of the trippiest records made of the era, however such claims are subjective of course depending which lysergic pastures one would graze in but unorthodox i believe is an adjective upon which everyone could agree and COTTONWOODHILL retains a distinct identity that sounds neither derivative nor copied decades after its release. It remains an utterly unique specimen tucked into myriad displays of psychedelic free form expression of the era. The album is essentially three tracks with the first two "Black Sand" and "Places Of Light" existing in a more "normal" plane of psychedelic and progressive rock that sounds like they could have even been playing on the stage of Austin Powers' warehouse in late 60s London. The tracks are surprisingly rooted in funk rock with a groovy bass, heavy drumbeat and prominent organ dominance with guitar licks adding the extra touch. While the album is filled with vocals, this isn't the normal type of vocal rock album as the vocals are never straightforward and directly sung. On the contrary they either emerge through the din of a processed electronic effect or are more commonly doled out in spoken narrative form especially by the psychotropic ranting freak outs of Dawn Muir.

While "Black Sand" is a heavy funk rocker, "Places Of Light" is light-hearted 60s sounding affair with Vandroogenbroeck cranking out pleasant flute melodies and keyboard runs. Muir begins her spoken word philosophical rants on this track and in a way the two openers are merely there to whet the appetite for the three part "Brainticket Suite" which takes up a whopping two thirds of the album and utilizes the same frantic groove for the majority of its duration. This groove is the combo effect of Vandroogenbroeck's hyperactive funk organ and the loop effect of Ron Bryer's guitar in sync with Werner Frohlich's slap bass guitar which serve as the anchoring foundation but pretty much everything else is fair game as everything from gargling water sounds, to atmospheric turbulence that sound like spaceships taking off to the seductive vocal rants of Dawn Muir come and go as the hypnotic groove creates a trancelike effect as all the accoutrements whizz on in a frantic flurry of activity. It is in effect an entertaining and skillfully crafted construction of order and chaos very much in sync with the visual imagery of the album artwork.

Upon my first experience of COTTONWOODHILL i was a little disappointed as i didn't find this as "trippy" as i had hoped it to be. There's something about the continuous and unrelenting groove loop that keeps this from taking me into the true lysergic lands of total escapism, but i have to keep reminding myself that this was 1971 when this came out and even so is still very much rooted in the 60s psychedelic scene that it was only a baby step removed from. It's better to look at this one as the mixing of not only the most psychedelic rock of the era but also of the ostinato musical elements that much of progressive rock was utilizing in order to allow various musicians to solo around. In this case, it's not the musicians who are doing the soloing but rather the sound effects, spoken word freak outs and collage of incessant swarms of noise that are the focus however the never changing groove loop with ever changing everything else is quite unsettling at first! While BRAINTICKET would continue to record with an ever changing lineup conquering new musical arenas with every release, COTTONWOODHILL sounds like no other, neither in their own canon or in any other band's for that matter. An utterly unique musical statement at the peak of psychedelic musical freedom. One that should be experienced to be believed :)

Warning: If you own the Purple Pyramid CD reissue of Voyage, you actually own Adventure, as both albums were accidentally swiped when reissued. So the review Im doing here goes actually to the real Voyage, which would be Adventure if you own the CD.

So, with an totally unchanged lineup of Joel Vandroogenbroeck, Barney Palm, Hans Deyssenroth, and Wilhelm Seefeldt, they recorded another album together, in February 1982. While Adventure was recorded during several sessions between May 1979 and January 1980 (and you can tell that, because music on there often had several abrupt changes), Voyage was all recorded all in one night, all improvised (it even states: "There were no rehearsals. We let the music flow out of our hands. We hope you enjoy it"). That's easy to believe, given there don't appear to be as much abrupt change as was on Adventure. To be honest, Voyage didn't quite left my mind blown the way of Adventure, but I still found it very enjoyable. At a time Duran Duran inflicted us with Rio (and that video of some lady wearing a purple plastic bag dress and the Duran Duran guys on a yacht), Joel Vandroogenbroeck seemed totally unaware of the changes, the music is still firmly in the '70s progressive electronic vein. Lots of clavinet, electric piano, Moog, with a more experimental bent than Adventure. Lots of gamelan and other percussion still used. There are some calm moments as well as some really tripped out moments. Listening to this, you'd think it came out in the late '70s. None of the keyboardists seem to come anywhere near a Prophet 5 or an OBXa, sticking to the trusted mid '70s stuff.

Bonus tracks (that is, the CD to Adventure, even though that's not the correct album), once again, of unknown origin. Joel Vandroogenbroeck, by this point, had released a ton of library music albums on Coloursound, but they weren't available to the general public (available to television, radio, and production companies interested), and only with the coming of the Internet had these albums been made aware of to the general public. None of these bonus cuts came from any of these albums. "Machinery (Analog 1970)" isn't from 1970. I'm guessing 1983 (after Voyage), sounds like Joel Vandroogenbroeck finally started including some early '80s polyphonic synths (sounds like an Oberheim OBXa) but the old '70s stuff like the clavinet are still being used. This one is more aggressive than "Skyline (Analog 1970)" (from the CD of Voyage, which is actually Adventure). "3 Worlds" is a really strange piece that goes through three changes. "Robotika" is a strange, percussive mechanical piece, appropriate for such a title.

This era of Brainticket is quite underrated. To me, this is how I wished the early '80s were like, not the era of MTV and Duran Duran. Given Joel Vandroogenbroeck was in his 40s at that time, it's obvious he had no use for stuff like that (his background was jazz, but he was open to the psychedelic and space rock scene of the early '70s, as well as world music, like gamelan), and gladly carried on like the '70s were still happening. His library albums after 1982 did show that he started adjusting to the times by including digital synthesizers (as well as the bonus cuts on both the CDs of Adventure and Voyage).

So if the review doesn't make sense, remember that the albums were accidentally switched when reissued on CD. I should know, years after I bought the CDs, I bought the original LPs, which cleared up a whole lot of confusion for me.

Really, Voyage is worth having but I felt Adventure is better.

Public service announcement: If you own the CD reissue of Adventure on Purple Pyramid, you're actually hearing Voyage, and that same applies to the CD of Voyage, you're actually hearing Adventure. So the review here goes to the actual album Adventure. I bought the CD of Voyage (or so I thought) in 1997, not too long after it came out, and I was certain it came out in 1976, it really had that cool mid '70s vibe going on. No year of release was included anywhere, except 1997 when the CD came out. Then I bought Adventure on CD in early 1998, and it did clearly state it was recorded between May 1979 and January 1980, so I thought Adventure came after Voyage. Wrong! Adventure came first, in 1980, Voyage next, in 1982, but the reason I thought Voyage was first was I didn't realize the mistake that those albums were accidentally switched. So in this review, pretend I'm reviewing the CD to Voyage (since those bonus cuts left me speechless). Years later I was able to acquire the original LPs of Adventure and Voyage, which totally confirmed the rumors I heard about those CDs.

After Celestial Ocean, it was pretty clear Brainticket seemed to have vanished. Joel Vandroogenbroeck put out a solo album in 1978 called Images of Flute In Nature, but in 1979, he resurrected Brainticket with Barney Palm (from the previous two Brainticket albums, Celestial Ocean and Psychonaut) with two German musicians, Hans Deyssenroth and Wilhelm Seefeldt. I really don't understand why this phase in Brainticket's career is frequently maligned. To me, I simply felt they were going the progressive electronic route, and I really feel fans of progressive electronic will get more out of it than the Krautrock wanting a Cottonwoodhill or Celestial Ocean. The album starts off with this weird electronic circus sounding stuff, then it suddenly cuts off, then there's a bunch of gamelan and strange percussion, plus the sound of some wooden rasp and a wind up toy (presumably teeth on feet), electric piano, clavinet and Moog kicks in. Here it has that very mid '70s feel (hard to believe it was recorded in 1979 and 1980!), almost like RInder & Lewis' incidental music to In Search Of... (although warning: Rinder & Lewis were associated with disco, although the incidental music on In Search Of... was clearly progressive electronic). There's amore tripped out part next, with that strange circus music appearing again. Then side two (if you own the LP, that is) starts off rather slow with strange use of noise synth filters, clavinet and electric piano, before the flute kicks in, and a great Moog solo starts, before that ends with some bizarre use of flute, and a more tripped out calm part, with electric piano, clavinet, and Moog. I really think this album is truly underappreciated, in fact it left me spellbound. When I discovered that what I was hearing was Adventure, not Voyage (because of the CD), I was more blown away this dated from 1980, not 1976. Joel Vandroogenbroeck seemed a bit resistent in going along with the times (given Joel Vandroogenbroeck was already over 40 in 1980, you can't imagine him being fond of Elvis Costello or any other new wave act of the time). At a time when "Turning Japanese" by the Vapours and the Clash's London Calling (it was released at the end of 1979, but it's more of a 1980 album) were the big thing in 1980, Brainticket releases an album that's far more in tuned with mid '70s aesthetics, even the vibe sounded so 1976 that I couldn't believe it was actually recorded between May 1979 and January 1980).

Now the CD (that is, Voyage) includes three bonus cuts. I really wished I knew where they came from. I know that throughout the 1980s and even into the 1990s, Joel Vandroogenbroeck had released a ton of library music albums on the Coloursound label. Of course, those albums weren't available to the general public, and it wasn't until the coming of the Internet that people even became aware of these albums. But it appears that these bonus cuts did not appear on any of theses albums. "Skyline (Analog 1970)" was not recorded in 1970, but sounds more in tune with Adventure (or Voyage, if you have the CD). It even sounds like the same lineup. I really like how it starts with this droning synths, the flute and clavinets kick in, before the string synths and percussion kick in, before calming back down, to the droning synth that started it. This really left me spellbound, I only wished this was available at the time it was recorded. "Underworld Paths" sounds more contemporary, like mid to late '80s, perhaps early '90s, this is one I can't totally tell when it was recorded, it could be anywhere between 1985 and 1992. By this point it's obvious Joel Vandroogenbroeck didn't have any trouble with adapting to the digital technology of the time (compared to Adventure and Voyage which were very stuck in the '70s despite their early '80s origins). There's some Native American influence, with ambient synth and slap bass. It clearly sounds like a Joel Vandroogenbroeck solo piece. "Nebula" also sounds like from the same time period but hard telling, this one's much more ambient and minimalist.

For years I had been confused by this era of Brainticket, but after buying the original LPs, the confusion is totally cleared. Really I feel this era of Brainticket is underrated and worth checking out!

Better than any of Brainticket's last efforts but then again....

"Past, Present & Future", 2015, is by far more focused and mature and shows Joel Vandroogenbroeck's (BRAINTICKET'S mastermind) best music writing attributes as some of his unmovable influences from earlier times, when Krautrock or to be geographically accurate "SwitzRock", met the USA's Jazz/Rhythm & Blues scene and revolved, as many other countries and popular musical styles, around it.

"Dancing on the Volcano pt.2", this release longest track (21+- minutes) is full of these blast to the past kind of outdated Funky influences and sadly it is just a long jam whose scarce highlights are overshadowed by quiet cliched improvisations.

Now kind of removing this track's unmemorable aftertaste and recovering track one "Dancing on the Volcano pt.1" which is proportionaly opposite and memorable than its second part, this release will satisfy most Krautrock followers who were into this 60's & 70's eclectic synth/space-Rock/Blues-Indo/ Raga style.

As for me, this release promises so much but actually stays short of being ground breaking or really daring in its entirety. Its closeness to the "past" instead of "present or future" serves as a tribute or memorabilia but also shows clearly a void of new musical ideas.

Truly memorable and proposing as daring compositions: track one "Dancing On The Volcano Pt.1", track 7 "Singularity" and "Egyptian Gods of the Sky" track 8.

***3 PA stars.