STELLARDRONE

This album is one of Lithuanian Edgaras Zakevičius' earlier releases. It has some real magical melodies to hook the listener in, but one can also see in the relative simplicity of the compositions that Edgaras was still developing confidence and experience. This simplicity sometimes works for him, sometimes against. At this point in his recording/production career I think too much time was being considered for very slow, very deliberate development and decline (or retrogression) while too little time was spent on layering, multiplying themes, and incidentals. Very smooth production, though.

Five star songs: 9. "The Edge of Forever" (4:05) (9.5/10); 1. "The Belt of Orion" (6:26) (9/10); 7. "An Ocean of Galaxies" (8:22) (9/10), and; the slow developing 3. "Maia Nebula" (12:38) (8.5/10).

Four star songs: 2. "Crystal Spheres" (4:10) (8.5/10); 4. "Approaching the Heliopause" (5:32) (8.5/10); 5. "Millions of Stars" (5:14) (8.5/10); 6. "Pale Blue Dot" (6:13) (8/10), and; 8. "Infinite Void" (6:33) (7.5/10)

A solid four stars album; a very good album of progressive electronic music that is recommended for patient, open-minded music lovers.

One of the most difficult subgenres of music to review, in my opinion, is Progressive Electronic. The differentiating characteristics of each song and artist are dependent on variations of tempo, instrument choice (such as the use of 'drum/percussives'), and But the moods so often conveyed through Progressive Electronic soundscapes are usually either floating/ethereal or traveling/driven, without much variation from the two. Thus, I have found myself hesitant to do many PE reviews--especially song-by-song, movement-by-movement reviews. A lot of what I hear is, of course, rendered into categories according to who they sound like (to me). Yet, there is an awful lot of Progressive Electronic music that I have grown to love. I want, therefore, to be able to extoll the praises of these albums in order to promote the artists creating the beauty from which I and others can so benefit. The act of trying to put a review into words just feels intimidating, even daunting. Perhaps I just need to find another, more creative way of using words. Stellardrone is the name that Lithuanian artist Edgaras ?akevičius has been using to release self-published music over the past ten years. While Edgaras' output has been at a fairly pleasing level from the start, it feels to me that until this album, Light Years, each of the Stellardrone albums has provided me with a bit of a rollercoaster ride--a lot of great songs pitted with the valleys of some weaker ones--songs that feel underdeveloped or 'cheesy' in their simplicity or in the choice of computer synthesized sounds chosen therein. Light Years is the first Stellardrone album that I absolutely love start to finish. There is no song-skipping here, no weak songs, only shifts in dynamics and speed, evocations of dreaminess or movement and adventure.

Five star songs: 1. "Red Giant" (3:15) (9/10); 2. "Airglow" (5:16) (10/10); 3. "Eternity" (6:21) (10/10); 4. "Light Years" (6:04) (10/10); "Comet Halley" (3:42) (9/10); 8. "Ultra Deep Field" (5:44) (10/10), and; 9. "Eternity (Reprise)" (3:33) (10/10).

Four star songs: 5. "In Time" (3:47) (8/10); 6. "Cepheid" (4:32) (8/10), and; 10. "Messier 45" (2:26) (8/10).

An album of beautiful music which does a wonderful job of provoking emotional and visual responses. Truly a masterpiece of modern electronica.

MUSIC FOR ASTRONOMERS AND NOT ONLY!!!

I discovered the music from this lithuanian guy not a long time ago. Wonderful music!!! Very atmospheric and cosmic sounds and long ambiental themes without almost any drums represents the definition of his beautiful music. For this , he uses only computer programs and almost no electronic instruments such as electronic music composers use to play on. "Sublime" is one of the 5 or 6 albums from his discography, and it makes a mark on his music. Hardly to make differences between songs; every song introduces the listener in Cosmos and between the stars and galaxies and the titles from the songs suggest this. To resume, if you enjoy pure cosmic music, put the hand on Stellardrone music!!! I find very difficult for me to rate Stellardrone music on progarchives, because of the "extremism" of this kind of electronic music which could be inappropriate for many progreviewers, but I will rate a medium between 4,5 stars ( my personal rating for this album) and 2 stars, which represents the collectors rating: so for Progarchives.com 3 stars!!!

Coming from the fairly standard electronic artist Edgaras Zakevičius, his 2012 work Echoes is your basic ambient electronic album. In the vein of some of Brian Eno or The Orb, Zakevičius (under the name Stellardrone) utilizes the soundscape to project ideas of the cosmic void with sound of billowing choral echoes. This ultimately is a fair definition of 21st century ambiance, and unfortunately Stellardrone fails to bring much of anything new to the table. A state of calm is instated upon listening, but the same can be said for most other albums of it's stature. Zakevičius is very keen on his work being used in different forms of media, but the niche that this sort of music fills is small. Without any prior experience into this artist, I can easily say that this is extremely dull and uninteresting.

Cosmic electronic minimalism.

'"A Moment Of Stillness", 2011, is a five compositions release which offers a close look into electronic based Cosmic minimalism to call it somehow.

As soon as the first two extraordinary compositions ran along I clearly sensed an early Steve Reich's influence but taken beyond mere plagiarism into unsuspected and unique directions and showing up true mastery in counterpointing as well as an undoubtly progressive electronic feeling which takes away any kind of further comparison with Reich's more classical oriented compositions.

These two first pieces alone easily rate 5 stars each, but then again the release has five.

The story of compositions 3 and 4 is quiet a different thing. I expected song 3 to break away from the first two micro minimalistic like structures, and it does. It deals with minimalism of long flowing repetitive melodic lines whose reverb and slow phased short delay builds the kind of short circuit counterpointing which could be compared to Robert Fripp's self titled "Frippertronics". The experimental side of Edgaras Zakevičius is welcomed yet it turns out quiet unproposing composition wise.

Track 4 delivers the same kind of experimentation a bit better than its previous sibling but it stays short in comparison to the first 2 tracks.

Track 5 closes with what seems like a perfect coda. Highlighting the hypnotic melodic lines of the first 2 tracks, he simplifies and blends both proposals into a single composition which makes it obvious to think how satisfied Edgaras Zakevičius should have felt with these 2 first tracks and to be honest with all reason.

Now as far as the rating goes let me add up. 2 masterpieces + 2 not very surprising experimental tracks + a good closing track, easy 3 stars but not exactly 4, although this guy promises a future solid 4 or 5 star release without doubt.

***3.5 PA stars.

Between VANGELIS and the PETER BARDENS of Seen One Earth, the Lituanian genius behind the nick Stellardrone justifies his name. Don't search for drums. This album is purely made of electronics. You are in a spaceship and the greatness of the Cosmos fills your soul of melancholy. Remove the ethnic vocals and the choirs from OLDFIELD's Song Of Distant earth, this is what I mean.

We have to wait for Cepheid, track number 6 to hear some electronic drums in a track that reminds also to ALAN PARSONS Project.

Ok, stop comparing him with other artists. Eternity and Airglow are pure beauty, but my favorite track is Comet Halley. The tracks don't exceed in length and most of all, are not made of electronic noises only like you can find in the music of the prolific PHROZENLIGHT. There are chords and melodies. The near-absence of rhythm is due to the space mood. Ultra Deep Field brings you to the most remote abyss explored by the Hubble telescope, Astronaut voices in the reprise of Eternity The travel ends on M45, the Pleiads, the seven sisters. not the Motorway to Coventry. It's apity that it ends fading out, but in this case it gives an idea of "suspension". The space travel doesn't end, probably never ends. Only the album is gone, but there are 7 more on Bandcamp to enjoy.

One of the best artists that I've discovered in 2015. For dreaming.

Edgaras Zakevicius a.k.a. STELLARDRONE comes from Lithuania and has been recently inducted into these PA's prog-electronic archives.

Stellardrone was recommended to me by some fellow PSIKE members long before he was actually included in these pages, so I searched for his releases in his Bandcamp section and got some of them and listened attentively.

"On a Beam of Light", 2009, is, as far as it appears, his first release and the one that became my personal favorite. What caught my attention firsthand is Edgaras Zakevicius keen sense of composition without departing from the endlessly reffered electronic schools.

So as you might guess by the title and cover art of this project, this is in fact an "outer space" sonic journey. Consisting of 8 compositions, that add up to a bit less than an hour, in which Edgaras Zakevicius compresses his very well structured musical proposals and delivers a measured work highlighted entirely by his own music solutions to this, by now, so recurring cosmic trips.

Full of surprises and sparkling creativity this release is attractive as it proposing. It stays always at a safe distance from the always referred Tangerine Dream's idiom, yet it could be compared to the other "unnamed" referential, Klaus Schuze, in the sense of focusing on solitary melodic lines opposite to massive ones, but that is as far as the comparison works out.

A well threaded project whose persistent sparks of masterpiece moments really deserves to be given a try.

***3.5 PA stars.