CRYSTAL MACHINE

First solo effort from Tim Bake (Gong) and possibly his best. In this sci-fi synth soundscapes, Blake develops his own musical eccentricities with lot of moods and technologies. The album delivers a sensual "cosmic" synthesizer trippiness. It's played as a long live session, supposing to be a performance for a sound installation, exploring the nature and meditative dimensions of astral navigation. The first composition "Midnight" opens the audiovisual show with intense, endless dreamy synth strings, "cosmic" sounding molecular noises. A very effervescent improvisation, the best moment here. "Metro Logic" is a groovy, kitsch synth experimentation, including spaced out textures. "Last ride of the boogie child" is a mysterious, relaxed electronic excursion, featuring a nice bass groove and drum machines. "Synthese intemporal" is an ambient, new agey, astral exploration with lot of analog synth melodies (really artificial), too much for me but the piece contains its little good moments with well found electronic figures. "Crystal presence" reveals better impressions despite that is not an epic spaciousness. The sound is warmer and darker, much more atmospheric too. Recommended to sci-fi synth maniacs.