IMPLOSION

I'm admittedly not the most committed fan of electronic music, but I will claim an appreciation for the high points of the genre. This is not one of them. Listen to this music, and imagine it being played on conventional instruments (nearly all of it could easily be played thus). It's no more than very basic, very repetitive stoner rock. It relies entirely on the novelty of the sound to set it apart - and even by 1980, I doubt there was anything especially novel about the sounds on this record. "Black Devil's Triangle" is the only piece that is at all genuinely interesting.

Last album from CYBOTRON. With this release, the band wanted to move away from their original TANGERINE DREAM influence by proposing more accessible music. Less fast pulsating hypnotic sequencers, more various sounds and mid-tempo spacey and poppy ambiances.

The first half of the record is my favorite. It has mysterious, intriguing atmospheres. "Eureka" is good although quite a strange choice for an album opening. The title track sound sometimes similar to what ELOY was proposing at the same period. I do enjoy the dark "Suite 16/9th Floor".

The second half is rather heterogeneous. "Encounter" features new-wave guitar play and saxophone! Enjoyable, but a bit too long. On the opposite, "Black Devils Triangle" looks like it was recorded years ago. Too repetitive, but it has its moments. The last track, "We'll be around" is the most surprising: try to imagine a kind of joyful blues-rock, but executed with synthetizers, saxophone and vocoder! I like it, but this has nothing to do on this record.

"Implosion" shows the band experimentating with different styles and changing directions. The whole result is unequal, but nonetheless pleasant. It would have been interesting to see what the band would have done if they had continued. At this time, few electronic formations were incorporating saxophone or new-wave to their style.

Third album, and final album, by Australia's Cybotron, released in 1980. Six amazing songs with a fusion of Progressive Rock and Krautrock. I'm listening the 2006 reissue by Aztec Music, remastered, with 20 pages full of information, interviews, photographs, accompanied by 6 extra songs from the incomplete and never released 1981 album, "Abbey Moor", as well as a curious version of Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn Theme." These unreleased songs were deliberately composed with a more commercial approach to Cybotron music. I do not like the final result as much as the main album, but the guitar version of "Eureka" is interesting. "Implosion" is a fabulous album that I recommend to all lovers of names such as Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Can, Neu, Faust, Kraftwerk, Amon D''l II, Goblin and Zombie.