PROGRESSIONS IMAGINAIRES

Arriving three years after their last effort, Perilymph's fourth album, Progressions Imaginaires, is this group's newest output. I've covered this band a couple times in the past, and I've always enjoyed their work. They have always done a great job at contrasting spare, acoustic passages with big, warm retro synth tones. 

Perilymph's past work has often straddled the always-fuzzy line between psych and prog. That has a lot to do with the way that they evoke the instrumental tones of the late 1960s, when psych and prog were both in their infancies and it was all a big mushy blob of forward-thinking rock music. This album, though, sees the band pushing in a more clearly progressive direction. The tones and textures are as lush and psychedelic as ever, but the songwriting is more dynamic, mature, and inventive.

After the dramatic, intergalactic synth theme in this album's intro, the first proper song on Progressions Imaginaires is "Les Yeux". Soulful electric piano gives this song a grounded warmth alongside the swirling sci-fi keyboard tones. Twinkling acoustic guitars jibe with the many synthesizers in an interesting way, which lends a sense of wholeness to the sound palette.

This piece is followed by the first of four tracks named "Interlude". The mood here is contemplative, with acoustic guitar arpeggios and piercing synths taking the lead. Following this mellow passage, "Loin du Bruit" opens with a jumpy, staccato pattern. There's a jazzy bounciness to this composition, and it's a great complement to the smoothness of this album's prior tracks. Big blasts of brash, piercing synths punch through every now and then, and it really adds to the weight and drama of this cut. In its final two minutes, there's a strangely percussive synth pattern that reminds me of Pink Floyd's "On the Run". Combined with the stuttering drumbeat, it does a great job at propelling this piece to a strong climax.

"Interlude 2" again puts acoustic guitar at the forefront, though synth embellishments are never far away. I'm a big fan of the vocal arrangement here. It's dreamy and watery, reminding me of passages on Abbey Road.

"Aventure" has a rather slow, stripped-back opening. A high-pitched synthesizer line glides through the air. Eventually, an uncharacteristically heavy and bombastic theme emerges, and it elevates Perilymph's music to a level they've never before achieved. It channels many greats of progressive rock without being derivative. Though not nearly as flashy, this song contains a number of Rush-y moments; the verses, in turn, plunge back into late '60s psychedelia, for an enchanting contrast. This song feels so much quicker than its eight-minute runtime. The instrumental passages feel so natural, and the way the orchestration keeps growing grander is incredible.

There's an airy skitteriness to "Interlude 3", and this band's jazz inclinations are at their most obvious here. The drumming is tight, restrained, and smart; and the wavering organ and strangely-tuned chimes maintain a disorienting atmosphere.

"Un Instant Ou Deux" bursts out of the gate with a powerful, ascendant synth line. The verses are rather simple Perilymph standards. They're catchy, and as the song progresses, they integrate more fully with this album's preceding complexities.

The album ends on a pair of short songs. "Interlude 4" is barely a minute long, but it's a nice little breather. "Outro" revisits the theme from "Intro", albeit in a darker mood, and it's an effective conclusion.

Progressions Imaginaires is Perilymph's strongest album to date and an easy contender for my nascent best-of-2024 list. The songwriting is complex and engaging, and the playing is tight. The band effortlessly balances complexity and grandiosity against more pared-back passages, and the whole album is an incredibly satisfying experience, front-to-back.

Review originally published here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/08/album-review-perilymph-progressions-imaginaires/

Admire this cover which smacks of psychedelia from the 60s and 70s, leaving little doubt as to the musical content of this discographic object. Bring out the mellotrons, the tube amps, the Fuzz pedals! Here is Perilymph and his fourth album 'Progressions Imaginaire', a kind of potion capable of reviving the nostalgic fiber of psychedelic prog lovers. The album is made up of four long tracks, linked by numbered interludes, all framed by an intro and an outro and entirely sung in French.

The short "Intro" develops a theme in the form of an instrumental build up. The characteristic sounds are there, small mention of the drum sound, very dry and precise. The first long track "Les Yeux" is linked without pause and presents another of the group's specialties: the vocal line is systematically doubled with keyboards or other instruments. The title alternates passages sung in French (which is unusual enough to be underlined) and breaks, instrumental restarts, without any concern for futile technical demonstration. In the process, the acoustic guitar of "Interlude 1" blends perfectly with the previous track and offers a beautiful melody carried by singing straight out of a daydream. "Loin Du Bruit" arrives with a rhythmically complex dynamic and a little South American touch. The group manages to vary the atmospheres and orchestrations, while maintaining the same rhythmic pattern. Return of a small guitar arpeggio on "Interlude 2" which takes up the melodic motif of the previous piece and the singing line of "Interlude 1". Great feat. "Adventure" is the longest song on the record. At a slower tempo and in a psychedelic atmosphere, it can at times evoke Pink Floyd , the overall sound becoming thicker and thicker as the track progresses.

A jazz tempo, almost bebop, features "Interlude 3" which offers unexpected chord changes and makes me think of a soundtrack from a television series from the 70s. Then comes the single "Un Instant Ou Deux", a kind of psychedelic pop ("Far from here, under the clouds, where time belongs to me, I flee, before the storm, into the uncertain horizon?"), with "twang" guitars, keyboards and vintage sound effects. The album ends with a final Interlude (4) whose guitar plan resembles the beginning of "Stairway to heaven", then the "Outro" which takes up the theme of the "Intro" with an additional dose of orchestration.

A little anachronistic UFO, 'Progressions Imaginaires' is a coherent and mastered album that makes no concessions to modernity. It takes us back to a period of unbridled and relaxed creativity, far removed from the constraints of profitability of current music. So, let's embark in this time capsule and relax away from the noise of the contemporary world.

Review originally posted on www.progcritique.com.

Named after the fluid in the space between the membranous and bony labyrinths of the inner ear, the psychedelic prog act PERILYMPH truly does aim to take you to space however its the outer variety that comes to mind rather than the inner with this band's retro sounding style that evokes a time when psychedelic rock was morphing into prog in the early 1970s. Initially the one-man band of the French born Fabien de Menou living in Berlin, the project has grown into a real band effort finding the project's style and sound evolving on each and every album. The latest album is PERILYMPH's fourth album since its 2017 debut album simply titled I (One). PROGRESSIONS IMAGINAIRE immediately evokes a psychedelic getaway with its colorful and trippy surreal album cover art.

Honestly, i've never experienced another album by PERILYMPH but this one is like going to an alternative timeline where Pink Floyd emerged in France rather than England. While the Floydian influences are clearly the #1 point of reference here with musical motifs that reference back to various chapters of Pink Floyd's career, the lyrics are sung in French and the music which is divided up into ten tracks with a running time of over 41 minutes is laced with other ingredients to totally throw you off. While the opening "Intro" paints a dramatic reference to Eloy styled keyboard excess, the first vocal track "Les Yeaux" sounds more like a Canterbury Scene track with keyboard runs that remind me of Supersister as does the vocal style however it doesn't take long for PERILYMPH to deliver a series of arpeggiated guitar chords that evoke various tracks on Pink Floyd's "The Wall."

The album flows brilliantly with every two tracks bridged by an interlude. These interludes will remind you most of classic Pink Floyd especially with the vocals at times however the keys evoke more of a Eloy vibe with oscillating trills and a heavier presence. "Loin De Bruit" ups the tempo with a staccato guitar stomping intro and then a somewhat jazzy return to the Supersister stylistic approach on the band's first two albums "Present From Nancy" and "To The Highest Bidder." The track also offers a lot of faster space rock styles more reminiscent of Hawkwind meets Eloy rather than Pink Floyd with a much more dynamic percussive drive than any of those bands actually. The keyboards are actually more like Ozric Tentacles than anything from the 70s. "Interlude 2" continues the Floydian guitar arpeggios which leads to the album's lengthiest track, the eight minute "Aventure" which sort of starts off like Eloy and then evokes "Hey You" from the wall before upping the rock guitar heft but then offers some of the most trippy French versions of Pink Floyd possible.

The album ends with two more interludes sandwiching "Un Instant Ou Deux" with a quickened guitar riff followed by bombastic synths and Hawkwind synth swirlies. Despite upbeat tempos, the undisclosed vocalist always is on mellow mode thus the album breezes by in a relaxed mode despite the music featuring varying styles of prog, mostly in the symphonic realms. Well, i find retro prog releases a bit hit and miss and blatant references usually rub me the wrong way but for some reason this album works for me mostly because it offers that alternative reality timeline approach much like a What If? episode of the Marvel animated series. In this case What If? Pink Floyd had emerged from France? Well, here's the answer! Overall the music is well performed with catchy melodies, feisty keyboard performances and a nice use of analog equipment to give it that authentic retro fitting. In short, pleasant and worth returning to.