DISEN GAGE

With this release the band had taken their King Crimson investigations into new directions, playing with RIO, avant- garde and experimental weirdness which came to fruition more in their later works. This one still contains a considerable amount of guitar at times, yet they are moving through krautrock and other areas to create something which is quite compelling and certainly outside the norm. The one major issue for me with this release is the sound of the snare drum, which is just too high in the mix and detracts and distracts from the proceedings around it. I can cope with the toms being fairly high as their more bass sound provides a good tribal backdrop, but the snare is just too high up and the reverb which has been applied definitely makes it stand out.

That is a real shame as there are sections of this where the experimentation is a delight, taking the listener on different journeys that may be intensely melodic or something filled with anarchy, and one never knows where the adventure is going to culminate. I would probably look to one of their other releases before going to this one, but yet again it is good to have it more freely available.

The label describes the album like this, 'Moscow scientists debut offers a highly concentrated twist on instrumental rock - a musical journey that leads listeners through the entire range of emotions without even needing words.' Don't think they're mad professors, although it would be useful to understand just what they are doing with this highly complex and complicated music as it turns, spins and whirls, with the result that any fan of Fripp is going to love this. The rhythm section is dynamic, and it is often the bass providing the warmth as the guitar interweave and construct strange patterns. Sometimes there is crunch, at others plenty of staccato picking, but it is always intriguing, and one never knows what is going to happen next. This may be very different to the band I came to know, yet is another great example of why in my mind they are one of the top bands to come out of Russia.

"Shiroyama" begins with a percussive sound thick, a film strip with metal anthem and cold and some notes of guitar noise for introspective intro. "Adventurers" guitar again and his accordion for a heady air gypsy with at the end a more atmospheric air disorienting to have been added there. Beautiful and innovative, leaving us from boat or in heaven for a few moments. "Chaos Point" comes to a rhythmic nag, trumpet (yet ???). These days artists have given the range for reuse these instruments I thought put in the museum! The bass is fat and heavy, jerky and metronomic drums. It flirts a bit of jazz on the excesses "Red" KING CRIMSON. There is a clean cut with voice yelled death (the only time sung in fact) that brings the ... chaos. Then the piano back to a simpler basis while the saturated guitar again and a quieter end and a title that must be domesticated (personally I spent long moments trying to figure it out). "Enough" with its post-spleen-throbbing atmosphere and guitar echoes as on THE GUITAR ORCHESTRA (album of 91 to have at home) and overloops. On OSI also for the sweet-sliced ​​and hypnotic staccato- voltaic and guitar frippienne remains until the arrival of a clear and melancholic cello supported by a frank battery. Both plotting to release a saturated air and causing the perfect musical oxymoron. "All the Truths Meeting"

Follows a Spanish guitar, a synth accordion for the parade of the marching band. "Selfish tango" hence the name for a tango furious xylophone (I really have heard everything there !!) and where the second air is nervous with guitar energetic, vibrant and synth pads. It's almost hypnotic, frenzied, "crescendique" (yes we have to invent words to try to explain!), Creative on. And the small end as confusing with that look more rhythmic on an electrified waltz. "Carnival escape" the longest and most astonishing part: listen to it and think of James Bond to Ennio Morricone, to "Love Boat" at the carnival in Rio, where the synthetic orchestra did its job for a note festive and especially puzzling to the end with a guitar this time darker. "End" Closing these 46'10 '' with the merger of all their ideas more or less controlled, there are a piano bringing a gentle swirling guitar jazzy, then look more built with a beautiful solemn rise, such a step (Princely or mortuary!). At this point and after a few tens of listening, I began to find it beautiful.

Good conclusion is essential for this album available in digital and CD. At first, one might think to flee as the sounds are disparate both instruments seem distant from the progressive rock. although one is actually on the experimental prog may seem crazy. After reflection and several plays, the themes coalesce to provide a truly progressive patchwork, festive and boisterous. What is most surprising is that this album gives true nobility conventional instruments used, even if it is through programming. The second thing that comes to mind is that there is indeed a musical score in this unclassifiable album to listen, just to unclog ears. The commitment and innovation to their maximum for sentencing.

"Complex textures, atonal improvisation, rhythms and hard riffs, soft soundscapes, a great sense of melody, outstanding personal skills", this is what I could find rightly on their chronic . I take this phrase to confirm that I am not alone in finding this album purely singular. "Planets" is the title built with sequences of sounds in space or hyper space wrapped in atonal sequences making random monitoring. It is hard to access, easier to swallow the helmet! With a few plays ears starting to detect a rhythm, a frame from theory Jupiter orbits.

"Trains" offers Station sounds about tangled paths, wind in the trains, brakes, winds blowing in the Moscow underground, it's very scary and dreamy: musical sounds are there to arrange and mix everything. "Animals" seems more accessible with more natural sounds, recognizable but equally frightening, dark and austere: wolves, bears, rattlesnakes and other insects are on the menu and many other dismal thing from a marsh Australian! Title not listen alone in the dark except for fun to be scared! These three titles more than 15 minutes each, despite my brief explanation, therefore represent a trip to the archaic music of our good old Earth, at a time when the man appears to be not appeared ... or already extinct; to listen without fear for those who are suffering from a huge spleen; for others, you'll get an unknown film music, a chilling atmosphere Sidereal but not meaningless.

Here's what i think

The album art shows ancient cave etchings. Superimposed over these priceless representations of elongated, archetypal, bizarre-to-modern-eyes drawings, the band name is scrawled as though graffiti, DISEN GAGE WAS HERE.

It's got an ornate picture frame surrounding a slice of this cave wall, and beneath that tableau, the album title, "The Big Adventure".

The feckless and heedless modern goes on safari, traipsing through scenes and sites that are rendered spiritual by virtue of longevity, solemnity, ritual, and innate beauty- and leave thereon their shallow scratches, taking selfies to send to equally vapid FB "friends", and crowing about their latest exploits.

Lookit me, ain't I grand?

Meanwhile, the Watchers Observe

And here's the genius part. DISENGAGE is certainly a moving target, a collective of amazing musicians pulled into the center, I suspect, of guitarist and founding member Konstantin Mochalov's orbit- the vision and the search for what lasts, has worth, endures, and how to confront the omnipresent idiocy of those who would heedlessly desecrate what they will stubbornly not see.

The vision includes cinema

The album art displays a provocative truth- one culture builds over another builds over another...and so on. The ancient must oftentimes be excavated, one seeming anachronism alongside another. One jarring detail that doesn't fit beside an entire feature.

In this album, the cinematic demonstrates this truth.

On one hand we hear what sounds like absurdist art music, and at another point, spaghetti western crazily spinning away into the distance.

We hear funhouse kaleidoscopes and calliopes, ominous classical chords from a grand piano introducing a theme, only to build...

And damned if nearly every track seems to be building to a fascinating finish only to abruptly end.

Genius I say!

Each musician certainly brings a lot to the table- polished, poised, pristine playing. (And how do you like that alliteration?) But listen! Hear the accordion in its wistful, sweet iterations, the tuba, the trumpets, strings, the jangling dissonances of clean guitar chords in various voicings...

Only to build into slabs of power, walls of sound and majesty, and then to devolve into chaos and clamor. Hmm, sounds a lot like civilizations rising, growing, developing, becoming arrogant, and with predictable hubris, over- reaching, and disappearing.

Furthermore

The instruments are often used in novel and wonderful ways. DISEN GAGE does not seem content to blend in, to copy, to follow trodden paths.

No, rather to innovate, to push, to explore, to grapple with newness, a sort of musical adventure of its own- one that does not desecrate and destroy with casual mindlessness, but instead builds upon the broad shoulders of those who went before.

The guitars will jangle, soar, squawk, and sing. The bass rumbles and harrumphs and wallows like an elephant in a cool pool on a hot day.

And those crisp drums accentuating, developing, massaging the sounds to deepen and broaden and widen the impact.

We hear the herky-jerky ballroom sounds, the ominous and dark space musings, surreal Dali-esque jazz shifting and morphing into lustrous chords only to become Romantic era and then of course a carnival.

Let's bring this to the FIN

Well, for me this is madcap genius writ large. I doubt it's for everyone- what art ever is?

My rating- 4.5 eternal etchings.

Challenging, eclectic instrumental progressive rock isn't a variety of the music that will ever hit the top of the commercial popularity lists, nor will it ever be in danger of seguing over to a mainstream audience. But those who know and love the more eclectic and expressive variety of instrumental progressive rock should take note of this album, as I suspect many who recognize themselves in such a description will truly appreciate what Disen Gage have to offer on this latest album of theirs.

But although the guitar is far more front and central in this instrumental album than it has been previously, and there are far more commercial elements in some of their music, Disen Gage are still mixing in left field influences and sounds when they feel the urge. There are a few guests involved to assist in pushing the envelope, adding in some jazz lounge piano to 'Carnival Escape', or including some brass sounds, and who else but Disen Gage would feel that a piano accordion would be the accompaniment at times? Twenty years on from when Konstantin started working under this name with Yuri Alaverdyan, Disen Gage continue to delight. It will be interesting to see if people finding this album for the first time then work back through the catalogue, as if they do, they may well find themselves in for quite a surprise as here is a band who continue to push musical boundaries. This is a major shift from 'Nature', and certainly surprised me, but is a wonderful way to find a band who continue to do whatever they like, whether that is bringing in Russian folk, RIO, or more commercial elements. They refuse to conform, and it is all the better for it. This is not as challenging as previous albums, so hopefully more will discover what a great band they really are.

'The Big Adventure' is one of the best releases in the entire 20-year history of this group. It is better than the two previous albums in the ambient / avant-garde style. Moreover, it is better than the very good 2016 'Snapshots' album which was based on the 'jam approach' (like the second album titled 'Libertage' (2006)). On the contrary, the newest release is characterized by a rigorous construction of compositions. In this aspect, it comes close to such landmark releases as 'The Screw-Loose Entertainment' (2004) and '... the Reverse May Be True' (2008). Each of the eight compositions of the album impresses with elaborate arrangements and thematic development, and each of them catches!

The best tracks are Chaos Point, Selfish Tango, Carnival Escape ' all these creatures are characterized by an unpredictable development and sharp changes in musical pictures. These compositions embody in the best possible way the main "principle" of the album: "from irony to sudden insights, from caustic irony to sudden grim frankness".

I would like to congratulate the group Disen Gage with undoubted creative success! The artistic level of her new album 'The Big Adventure' can be comparable with the level of the aforementioned '... the Reverse May Be True' release, which is deservedly considered as the 'essential highlight' of the band. 'The Bid Adventure' is one of the Albums of the Year.

Aesthetically it feels like Dark Ambient. That is especially true for Trains, try it out at night on some creepy train station. The atmosphere of the other two tracks is harder to penetrate as the music is quite alien (especially on Planets, ha-ha, got it?). But that is exactly why the album is so good: it invokes unique feelings and offers a dive into some other realm for those who can catch the right set of mind. One good thing about experimental music is that it often tries to provide new aesthetics for us, bored by listening to the same thing for years, and it sometimes succeeds to do so. This, in my opinion, is the case.

It's very hard to access this work with stars. Yes, Nature is different, and it would probably be wrong to call it progressive rock due to the latter word. But this doesn't prevent, for instance, Tangerine Dream albums from enjoying highest marks and spots in all-time top. This album is a unique experience, which can also be highly pleasant if given a proper chance. Should I say that it's not something that would appeal to many progheads and call it "collectors/fans only" or should I praise the boldness of the band's decision to update its discography with this sudden atypical record and proclaim 4 stars?.. Funnily enough, the votes of the previous reviewers have divided equally. My choice is seen on the opposite side of the review.