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Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere - Theta Three CD (album) cover

THETA THREE

Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere

 

RIO/Avant-Prog

4.87 | 4 ratings

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Rivertree
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Band Submissions
5 stars Don't ask me why, I won't explain it in a satisfactory way. Only can say that this one's still my favourite of the upper Theta series. So far, I can't imagine what will come next of course. Two and a half hour playing time, yeah, solely in this case! Hence this could be easily renamed to 'Theta Three Times' maybe. Brimful of challenging music stuff. A gorgeous hybrid of composition and improvisation. Mostly relaxing, the purpose is health cure. I mean, this alone can make your day, the medical dose certainly is sufficient. Just that listening session, and (nearly) everything will change. You won't need more to inhale before you go to bed in order to recover, to prepare for the next day. Caution, exceptions prove the rule, you know. The cinematic excursion Fictitious Force for example is equipped with definite horror atmosphere. You shouldn't stop here, never ever! The healing success would be in question then.

Just keep going, with An Excess Of Protons and the following krautrock infected Anisotropic Shapes they have arrived at an album peak for the first time, the appointed upper atmosphere. Wonderful! Surprise, the air doesn't get thin at all. On the contrary, they are getting their second wind. This is eclectic, and more, this is certainly avantgarde too. Hereby the orchestra is entering a wide range of prog subgenre meadows. 20 tracks, the result of just a few but very inspired recording sessions, I'm quite sure. Everyone is served. Even some restrained vocals respectively otherworldly voices are offered. What a revelation! Can't believe that they ever will be capable of repeating such an attempt once again.

United Kingdom based Martin Archer is the head of this experimental orchestra. He's mastering several instruments, just like diverse wind tools, keyboards, electronics aso. But this does not mean that he's driving everything on his own. Sure, after all it's an orchestra. So all in all twelve musicians are involved here, more or less. Symphonic strings, spacey ambient synthesizer, tricky electronics and samples everywhere, hypnotic grooves, hauting atmosphere on Tangential Force, the fusionesque Pororoca or Zeuhl infected Galleon ... wait! It's quite impossible to list all of those provided facets. You shouldn't miss that. Belated a bit, but now ultimately let me send out my CONGRATS to the upper atmosphere.

Rivertree | 5/5 |

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