PROGRESSIVE ELECTRONIC

— First review of this album —

COIL was so in love with the track THE SNOW off their "Love's Secret Domain" album that they decided to create a whole EP of different mixes for it. On THE SNOW EP we get six different takes on one track each tweaking and alternating tempos, beats and ambient textures. This isn't typical of most COIL music which is more often than not experimental and electronic often creepy, dark and brooding. This is ambient techno and the beat is strong and perhaps the most danceable of anything the duo has released. The embellishments are still very much COIL with the strange vocalizations and creepy ambience but the steady beat is atypical creating an unusually sounding clash of the upbeat and lugubrious.

This was basically a bunch of remixes compiled by different band members who created their own versions and they threw them all together. Two are from Peter Christopherson, two from Jack Dangers and two from John Balance and Drew McDowall. The tracks are different enough to sound like totally different songs with only the strange vocals reminding you that it's all derived from one source. Not really the best COIL has to offer but taken for what it is, namely a remix album it is one i can sit all the way through since it doesn't sound as samey as one would imagine. Decent, danceable and depressing.

Robert Rich is best known for his "sleep concerts". During the 80's, in the San Francisco Area, his ambient music was playing, and the audience has to sleep. Robert Rich woke them up with piano notes. So, Robert Rich make ambient music to sleep or to meditate. So, often, the ambient music is long, right ? Somnium is SEVEN HOURS LONG !!!! Seriously, it's huge. It's a music to sleep, and night is long so the music have to be long, but seven hours, it's really long. It is boring ? If you listen to it like a classic rock album, of course it is. But if you try to sleep or to meditate, it's just the perfect album. There's very uplifting moment. For this huge work, Rich deserves 4 stars.

Now, the White Eagle has crossed the Rubycon and entered the Stratosfear. Edgar Froese - RIP

The Prog universe took a different turn today, directly the result of Edgar Froese untimely death in Vienna. His passing was duly noted in headlines around the world, a vanguard pioneer of electronic music that stretched the boundaries of rock music, as well as defining soundtracks for a wide variety of artistic endeavors, from film to vernissage. On a personal note, my 37 strong TD album collection went from current to legendary status with his departure, so any revisit from now on will be a reverential pleasure that will undoubtedly alter my perception of an already highly evocative style of music. What made TD so delightful as an audiophile is that the style simply encouraged alternate perceptions each and every time one would listen to the same album, conveying different moods and reactions that depended on such triggers as time of day or season, mobile or inert, at work or at play.

When grounded by a 100 album and counting career, spanning nearly half a century, it would be kind of useless to compare the various eras, some still very contentious with hard-core fans (such as the 90s output) but I believe that Edgar had completed the 'cycle' and returned to his classical period glory in the last few years before his unfortunate exit. In particularly brilliant fashion, Edgar released in 2011, a couple of scintillating albums "The Angel of the West Wind", which I have already reviewed as well the object of this exercise "The Edgar Allan Poe- The Island of Fay", both are worthy of the loftiest praise and form part of Froese's 'the Eastgate's Sonic poem series' project. Back in form with grandiose melodies, breathless sequenced arrangements and an organic pulse, the electronic soundscapes paint vivid mental pictures, highly individualistic readings that are always a unique interface between artist and fan.

"Marmontel Riding on a Clef" is a remarkable opener that highlights low-end volcanic eruptions with sweeping overhead melodies, where the fusion of the mechanical and the quixotic gently coaxes you to sit back comfortably, close your eyes and wander away into the deepest recesses of your own mind. It is all effortless and ethereal.

The athletic "Breath Kissing Matter's Mouth" is an idealistic affair , sweeping layers of doom gliding over hypnotic percussive swells and an ostinato sequence that makes for ardent listening, one of the finest TD pieces ever. This amazing contrast between simple and complex, muscular and celestial is what makes TD so utterly enjoyable even after multiple returns. Keyboard maestro Thorsten Quaeschning has been a positive foil for Froese to reignite some old-school Tangerine Dream stylistics, mainly by incorporating the legendary mellotron into the mix, hence providing a sense a grandiose reverence to the arrangement.

The rather romantic-laced melancholia of "Beauty of Magic Antagonism" offers a different take on the previous pieces, closer to ab 'acoustic' TD tune, deliberately simple and yet wraithlike, mystifyingly misty and still audacious. The mood is ornate and palatial, a trait that went perhaps missing during the 'tame' 90's and is splattered all over this release.

The 11 minute epic "Fay Bewitching the Moon" revels in a decidedly more cinematographic manner, almost symphonic electronica for the early part, until the strapping sequencers kick in with their thunderous pulse. Quivering synthesizer overlays carpet the platform for a phantom violin solo from Hoshiko Yamane, littered with Iris Camaa's luxuriant percussion, this piece certainly hearkens back to the glory days of yore.

"Cycle of Eternity" keeps the whirlwind blowing, another elliptical loop melody that arches out into the stratosphere, conveying both spirituality and perpetual bliss, without any artifice or conformism. There is a delectable groove here, free flowing and natural, not content to be mere background music which TD never was nor should ever be. The violin again leads the procession nicely.

This is followed by three 9 minute (or so) pieces that simply seal the deal in terms of the album's success. The now ominous sounding "Death in the Shadow" is a shattering piece, just that 'cimbalom' patch alone is enough to seduce me but throw in some ghostly choir echoes and I am completely rapt in utter enjoyment!

"Moment of Floating Into the Light" suggests even more gentle adventure and sweeping drama, a tightly woven slice of magnificent sounds and mysterious horizons. A lovely guitar phrasing comes screeching through the clouds, reminding us that he was quite an accomplished guitarist as well.

The creepy melodrama of "Darkness Veiling the Night" , a lovely Quaeschning composition , slithers through the tiny cracks like some soporific gas, echoed metronome percussion merging with liquid guitar licks and sizzling sparkles of sound frizzing the airwaves, this is the quintessential modern electronica that breathes organically, unrushed, universal and mind-numbingly gorgeous. It all sounds so metallic, so forlorn and desperate, the mellotron in particular causing all the damage, helped along by some piano assertiveness. Ridiculously delicious!

The rock music community all over the world, as well as the film industry is in shock at the passing of a huge pioneer, a genial Prussian who led synthesizers into battle at a time when Elvis was still ruling the waves, expanding his seminal craft in parallel with millions of minds who luxuriated in the Tangerine Dream as listeners and fans. Herr Froese, you live on eternally in your music, "Endlich zusammen"!

5 clemetine reveries

Zeit - a true masterpiece.

This review is a tribute to Edgar Froese.

I learned that Edgar Froese had passed away yesterday evening so as a tribute to one of the greatest pioneers of electronic music I have decided to do a review of one the greatest pieces of electronic music ever recorded. Tangerine Dream have a vast discography of both studio and live recordings and were still actively recording up to the death of their inspirational leader. In my opinion Zeit represents one of their best recordings. It is a mammoth work of four movements that each spanned a full side of vinyl on the original release. It was also the first recording of what many, including myself, would regard as the "classic" line-up of Froese, Franke and Baumann and represents a seminal work of electronic music/space rock.

It is subtitled "Largo in four movements" and as the term Largo indicates it is a slow moving work that gradually developes, evolves and unfolds capturing the listener in realms of deep space.

"First Movement: Birth of Liquid Plejades" starts with some rather menacing cello and evolves into an etheral mesmerising spacy composition.

"Second Movement: Nebulous Dawn" starts of quitely with droning synthesiser then joined by more keyboards and pulsating sound effects creating a very atmospheric haunting piece. Again it envokes images of the other worlds deep in the solitude of space.

"Third Movement: Supernatural Probabliities" envokes images of the vastness of space, menacing at times, with a pulsating sound in the background which if you let you mind wander could represent the hum of a futuristic space craft crusing through deep space.

"Fourth Movement: Zeit" is another haunting etheral composition. Zeit translates as Time, so I envisage it as a sound representation of time and space, many of the stars we see in the sky are many millions of light years away, the light we see from them now was emitted many millions of years ago and has travelled the vastness of space to only reach us now.

I tend to do most of my music listening while working (been self-employed helps) and some when driving but this music deserves to be heard properly, sitting back in an armchair with the lights dimmed (but probably not in the dark as it may just scare you too much) and closed off from the distractions of the outside world so that you can obsorb its nuances and take your mind on a journey to the outer reaches of the cosmos and alien worlds.

This is one of the most important records of the 20th Century. It is a magnificant musical achievement. It was ground breaking for its time, opening up a whole new world of musical posibilities. Definitely a masterpiece well worthy of a 5 star rating.

— First review of this album —

How fitting that on the day that the world lost Tangerine Dream's electronic music pioneer Edgar Froese I should be reviewing an album and artist that takes his defining styles and sounds of electronic/Berlin School music and offers his own unique, exciting and very personal take on the same traditions in a way that Froese would no doubt have been immensely proud of. Spain's Tomás Fernández Girón's debut album `Forest' from 2014 may share the same kind exploratory ambience and space music adventurousness as the early Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Klaus Schulze and Ashra works, but there's a darker, more melancholic and deeply human sound drifting through this work, especially due to many sparse moments of despondent piano throughout the electronic ambient soundscapes.

One thing that makes `Forest' instantly stand out is that it avoids some `cosmic' clich's that are often found on these sort of `space music' albums, even the title suggests something more grounded, which makes the music easier to connect with and relate to on an emotional and personal level. Even so, there's something just a little...`off' in parts, slightly unnerving throughout this album, and it creates a very surreal and conflicting mood! This slight edge and uncomforting quality makes Girón's music about as far from unoriginal, pretty hero worship as you can get, and the sparse low-key production gives the album a very intimate and real fragility.

Opener `Cross The Line' weaves lonely heartbreaking piano behind reverberating machine hums and weeping synth cries, sequencer patterns creeping in and constantly building in urgency. `Inside the Forest' and it's reprise later on incorporate distortion, whirring machine oscillations and a maddening ticking beat that scratches at your nerves, Tomás' delicate piano notes cutting straight to your heart. An almost darkly romantic piano melody carefully dances over drowsy fuzzy washes throughout `Deep', with pressure drop rising and falling electronic waves, and skittering loops that race headlong into pulsing dance beats. The album then unexpectedly closes with moments of real joy throughout the dreamier and carefully sweet closer "Outside the Forest" by way of playful sequencer beats, trilling synths and warm electronics washing over the listener.

Recorded live in the studio during November of 2013, limited to a now likely sold out run of 100 CD copies, `Forest's lengthy Berlin School atmospheres, relentless sequencer patterns, sombre drifting piano ambience and even brief tasteful pounding dance beats ensure a perfect balance of vintage and modern electronic styles. It's an incredibly accomplished debut album with a very distinctive sound, and with mention of an upcoming second album already in the works, the ambient/electronic genres have an exciting and original new artist to keep an eye on with Tomás Fernández Girón.

Four stars for `Forest', a deeply personal favourite album for me from 2014.

I'm not a fan of ambient music or progressive electronic except some artists like Tangerine Dream (RIP Edgar Froese), Brian Eno, Klaus Schulze and Ashra. I didn't know Alio Die before this release. So i'm not a fan of this style, I have to recognize that the work of Alio Die and his partner Lorenzo Montana really know their job. The atmosphere is well done. It's very tripp and well made. It's such a shame that I'm not fond of ambient and electronic prog, because if I was, I would love this album. All the fans of this style should love Holographic Codex (I like this title very much by the way).

The start of 2015 already delivers a standout progressive/electronic release in the form of `Holographic Codex', a collaboration between two very different Italian musicians, the expansive drone artist Alio Die and soundtrack composer and producer Lorenzo Montanà. The two have literally dozens of previous albums and productions between them, and here they offer a selection of constantly evolving, deeply immersive ambient sounds, delivering a surreal mix of eerie instrumental soundscapes balanced with hypnotic wordless vocal drones and strong ethnic flavours. Despite moments of emotional beauty, much of the material is extremely confronting with an overwhelming disorientating atmosphere, frequently sharing the same kind of exploratory environments of the more mellow Krautrock albums. Both of these artists are in perfect unison here, offering a truly intimate and exotic journey.

The mysterious yet pretty opener `Muns de Etrah' brings a false sense of security and contentment, being a warmer drifting synth drone with a light pleasing skittering beat over the top. The album then instantly takes a gloomier turn. A despondent tormented treated male cry wails over ghostly piano throughout `Hydra e Vers', instantly comparable to the second `Voices of Syn' side of German electronic pioneer Klaus Schulze's dark divisive 1974 masterpiece `Blackdance'. `Silent Rumon' grafts that same voice to slowly unfolding droning ethnic instrumentation with a brooding cinematic quality, the dusty heavy mood similar to Electric Orange's `Volume 10' from 2014. Crystalline shards and clockwork-like thickness levitates before and quickly envelopes the listener throughout `Avkil', and `Egetora' is a slow-motion droning wavering sustained hum around a spectral siren cry.

The fifteen minute `Cinta della Brecia Divina' is a storm of swirling winds inhaling and exhaling like the breath of God, jangling zither chimes, chirping insect ambience and unfolding synth and organ washes over delicate fizzing pulsing beats like `Timewind'-era Klaus Schulze. This mix of sandy ethnic Krautrock flavours and sparse electronics also calls to mind the first two Agitation Free albums. `Eternal Wisdom' then closes the work with impossibly beautiful operatic voices submerged in ebbing ethereal spirals, the very definition of pristine serenity and spiritual bliss.

Only barely three weeks into 2015, and we've already seen outstanding (and all completely different) ambient releases in the form of Steve Roach's `Invisible', Ishq's `Autumn Light/Winter Light' and Altus' `The Time Collection', and now most impressive of all is this one. Alio Die and Lorenzo Montanà's album is for electronic (and Krautrock) listeners who don't like simple, pretty ambient music, instead preferring challenging, expansive and thought-provoking compositions, the sort of music that completely alters the environment around you. `Holographic Codex' is deeply meditative, hypnotic and already utterly timeless, making it one of the first essential progressive music related releases of 2015.

Five stars.

A trip through their wires.

"HOLOGRAPHIC CODEX", a 2015 release, sets on a different pace in Alio Die's collaborations with other electronic musicians. Now it´s turn for Lorenzo Montana's talents to recreate in Alio Die's universe, when usually it happened otherwise in Die's latter collaborations with other hosts/guests.

And well, this is how far and modern Die's genial musical language can turn up to be, or let me say, how close can his idiom be of prog/electronics (or the super famous "Cosmic Music" school, or the use of electronic rhythm pulses) as usually understood. And how Montana's language adds up these specific electronic routes, which rarely happened as such, I repeat in other collaboration or solo projects.

The balance between compositions, there are seven, allows the perfect and creatively flowing landscapes to develop throughly and free as single unities, yet as in almost all of Die's works, the whole body of work is felt conceptual.

Alio Die's ultra-refined, ethereal, environmental structures are predominant in the majority of the compositions, and for the first time in his collaborative works, I think it could have been nice, thinking of this as a 2 musicians work, a bit more of the "prog" electronics, Montana brings on, but that is asking for the not given.

If you are already familiar with Alio Die's works, this is the all perfect-flawless compositions kind of work (business as usual), in the tenor of his most inspired albums (i.e. "Deconsacrated and Pure" or "Honeysukcle"), if you want to feel surprised, well this album will achieve that, and maybe as me, will have liked a little bit more of those electronics, just for fun!

If you are a newcomer, dwell into it, if lucky (you! I mean), you will hold it in your Prog collection.

I of course, will keep it!

*****5 "flawless-ethereal" PA stars.

NODE is considered a super group of sorts with four guys who all have very successful careers. No wonder it took some 14 years for them to get back together and create album number two. First we get Dave Bessell a classically trained composer and professor of music, Ed Buller a composer and producer, Flood a producer and so called sonic legend, and Mel Wisson who does a lot of movie soundtracks and thus a Hollywood composer working closely with Hans Zimmer, he also does video game and British TV soundtracks.

The guys met twice at Battery & Assault 2 Studios in London, England over a 1 1/2 year period. The sheer volume of vintage analogue equipment would have given Schulze an instant erection i'm sure.

"Shinkansen East" opens with a beautiful atmosphere that is quite dark, like being out in space. It sounds like mellotron at times along with various sounds that twitter and pulse. An electronic beat kicks in around 4 minutes as the mood changes. A second beat joins in. A calm before 7 1/2 minutes with lots of atmosphere as beautiful mellotron-like sounds arrive after 9 minutes to end it. "The Traveller" opens with another gorgeous atmosphere that drifts along. It picks up as electronic sounds join in. I'm reminded a lot of SENSATIONS' FIX 4 1/2 minutes in. It's building after 6 minutes with an electronic beat. "Becoming" features sounds that sound like wind chimes as a haunting atmosphere supports. The chimes stop after 2 minutes as an electronic beat takes over. Sounds like guitar too and I have to say this is amazing headphone music. Slight changes continue the rest of the way. "Doppler" has sounds that pulse with atmosphere and more. An electronic beat joins in before 2 minutes. The atmosphere and background sounds eventually leave as sounds beat and pulse.

"Marche Mecanique" has these deep sounds that pulse slowly then the drums join in and more as the tempo picks up. An electronic beat joins in as well. I like the synths after 4 minutes. It then starts to settle down as lots of intricate sounds follow. "Dark Beneath The Earth" opens with deep and dark sounds that form a slow moving rhythm. Other sounds join in including some cool sounding synths and piano-like sounds. Mellotron-like sounds late create majesty. "Shinkansen West" sounds amazing to start as we get a dark atmosphere with sparse sounds. An electronic beat comes in after 2 minutes as the tempo picks up. Full speed ahead now with so much going on. "No Signal" has such a powerful atmosphere at first. It does settle down and sounds start to echo after 3 minutes. "Thin Air" opens with deep sounds that seem to hover as pinging-like sounds and more can be heard over top. It almost sounds like strings at one point then an electronic beat comes to the fore around 4 1/2 minutes in. The beat stops around 6 1/2 minutes as various sounds twitter and pulse. They stop as it turns majestic late to end it. Nice.

This is one of the best Electronic albums I have ever heard, I have to say i'm very surprised at what these four talented men have created here.

Robert Fripp is the maker of Frippertronics, the structuring of layered tape loops of his guitar into pieces of music. Brian Eno is the credited creator of ambient electronic music. Put them together and you get some very beautiful and very interesting soundscapes. That is what is contained on this experimental album.

So, I know there are a lot of listeners out there that have a hard time with experimental music. However, it is this type of music that leads to discovery of different genres that keep the current of music flowing forward and not becoming stagnant. This album is important in that it was through experiments like these that created a new form of music that people enjoy. The sound of this album is the sound of discovery and of the expansion of musical form. It helped lay the groundwork for both ambient and drone music.

This album is all instrumental. The first 3 tracks are beautiful examples of the music that can be created from the minds of two geniuses. They consist of taped guitar loops from Fripp that have been layered over each other with embellishments of synthesizer sounds provided by Eno. The titles are descriptive of the sound of the music and you can close your eyes and visualize the pictures that are painted by the music with suggestions of where your mind is to go by the titles of the tracks. All three of these soundscapes are simply lovely, the first being very shimmery, soft and dreamy, the 2nd being brighter in tone with more exaggerated guitar sounds somewhat similar to what Fripp would produce in his later KC guitar solos, very connected with amazing phrasing. This is a free floating beauty of a track and the guitar work is stunning. The 3rd track is rather short and somewhat understated but still beautiful. Not much is developed in this track, but it still fills in nicely. "Wind on Wind" is 100% Eno on synthesizer creating a soundscape similar to his Ambient albums. This music was intended Fripp's use in live concerts as background music for him to solo over.

The 2nd side of the album is made up of one long-single track called "An Index of Metals". Aptly named, it is more of a cold and metallic sounding track, not metallic in terms of genre, but in terms of feeling. It is set up with a drone that continues throughout the track with ambient sounds weaving around the basis. About halfway through, Fripp's distorted guitar starts to be heard as the drone subsides somewhat and the sustained notes of the guitar continue to layer around each other, repeating softer and softer until they meld into the drone as other sounds are being created on top of it.

This is headphone music like most ambient music is, at least that is where it is most effective. It has the best effect when you can listen to it uninterrupted and your mind can create the pictures or it can travel to destinations unknown. Some may say they need mind-altering drugs to get the full effect, but I don't find that necessary. The best music can take your mind away without chemical influence. I find this music soothing and relaxing. That is the overall feeling of this album. Even the long track, even though it is more dissonant and cold sounding, is still soothing to me. It isn't as harsh as "(No Pussyfooting)" or as clinical. It is a collection of beautiful soundscapes and part of a movement that would inspire artists still today. I love this sound as it is very visual and even though it is experimental and the sounds are more processed than actual, it was at the time a new way to manipulate sound into beauty and art. I love this sound when I'm in the right frame of mind and because of it's influence and it's originality of the time would have to consider it essential. The fact that I enjoy it so much cements the fact that it is a 5 star recording.