AUTOUR DE LA LUNE

This is ambient at its most ambient, like floating aimlessly into a void where the only sounds able to be heard are the ones generated by your own consciousness. Drone music is supposed to be empty and calm, but a lot of drone-oriented albums don't offer any variety at all and instead employ one constant drone wave length that runs through every track with an occasional blip-bloop somewhere to invoke annoyance. To be honest, I can't remember a drone album I've enjoyed as much as this one in a very long time. Biosphere's approach has variation. There are high-pitched drones, low-pitched drones, singular drones, multiple drones -- it's the Dr. Seuss drone album! In addition to the drones (they'd be boring by themselves) there are always either minimal progressions, mysterious and short melodic lines, or various textures added to each track as the metaphorical "bells and whistles" that make Autour De La Luna worthwhile.

However, the album doesn't start off as a drone album. The first track, "Translation", is a nearly 22 minute spacial/mechanical exploration into hums, buzzes, minimal synth textures, and faux-symphonic crescendos, also repeating a very short and hypnotizing melodic line that is more unsettling than pretty but somehow maintains both feelings. Something else that makes Autour De La Luna stand out among the millions of drone albums that throw the listener into a void of perpetual boredom is the use of bone/brain rattling bass frequencies usually only heard on the grimiest of modern hardcore rap. There are two tracks on this album, "Vibratoire" and "Circulaire", that consist of almost nothing except a constant vibration that would give Earth's Earth 2 a run for its money. Putting the bass aside, "Disparu" is a short (and almost silent) but sweet aquatic melody that sounds like it is coming from Gregorian chanters from miles away.

Whereas most drone album drone aimlessly into your ears and leaves you with nothing except restlessness, Autour De La Lune has drones deep enough to vibrate your brain into a euphoric paralysis while stimulating your need for melody with mysterious and almost nonexistent hooks. I'd be hesitant to say that this album is as good or enjoyable as Biosphere's classic albums like Substrata and Cirque but it definitely is different in a great way that show's this artist isn't simply a one trick pony -- so far he's at least a five trick pony, and that's more than I can say for many other artists. Autour De La Luna is the album that fills the void in Biosphere's ambient techno based discography with... another void.