NAUTILUS

That said, both of the albums are very nice in their genre. Maybe this one being slightly better. It has an underwater/ diving theme, which reflects in music, keeping it mostly calm and atmospheric. Of course the underwater theme has always been very popular in Electronic or 'space' music, for example TANGERINE DREAM's Underwater Sunlight, BJÖRN J:SON LINDH's Atlantis - Bilder från en Ö, and Diving Dreams by G.E.N.E. (the latter artist not in PA), all of which actually have impressed me more in bygone years (when I was more into Electronic than nowadays, though).

To some degree Nautilus' music suffers from the lack of fresh ideas and surprises, ie. the album is indeed pleasant but quite samey on the long run, especially if compared to TD's aforementioned album. Nautilus is more clearly New Age music, even though electric guitars are part of the relatively rich sound palette. 67 minutes is a challenge to keep the music exciting within an underwater theme, but still there could have been some more adventure-like twists in this album. One must mention the 22-minute title track: it flows nicely from start to end and in the end you wonder if it really was that long, but do not expect very progressive journey from it. Some shorter tracks don't add anything notable to the whole but not exactly bad eggs in the basket either. If you like New Age/ Electronic and have enjoyed for example the output of the German label Innovative Communication ( -IC- in short), why not check this one out.

Actually it's the backside of the Moon you see in one picture, but the musical trip is careless and hippy anyway. Synths, sequencers, samples and electric guitars are our vehicles, all polished and greased up well. Many tracks extend beyond 6 minutes, the longest even 13:54, (and yet nothing seriously progressive) but the groove doesn't fail. Instead this music seems to give some energy while being a kind of hypnotic - though you better do something else too, while listening. Pretty nice 72-minute album in its field but totally "non-essential" for us progheads: 3 stars.