SEQUENCES

Voyage cerebral published a few years before corresponds to a high standard of kosmische electronic dreamness. Unfortunately this honest Sequences doesn't reiterate the sensations provided on the previous effort. This is a much more conventional, formalistic, mainstream work divided into short pieces specialised in mysteriously epic, heroic and almost symphonic textural synthscaping sequences. The musical pieces are composed for massive analog synth, electronic repetitive arpeggios, time to time covered by nice, touching piano chords. This album sounds a bit kitschy and cheesy today but it contains some good moments (notably in the haunting, floating tune named nostalgia) and the pieces are well achieved, full of arrengements. I'm sure that these playful, charming almost new agey melodies will ravish fans of late 70's cosmic groovers. A pleasant listening and a real transition for Bocquet who tried to capture an hybrid stylistical approach somewhere between spacey-melodic-symphonic-electronic rock.

Didier Bocquet leaves behind the cosmic dreaminess of his previous album in favor of a much more robotic and mechanical flavor on Sequences. Instead of a long voyage of eclectic synth textures that float beautifully like an aurora, this album focuses more on shorter bursts of post-industrial synth textures that sound similar to Kraftwerk albeit a bit more emotionally involved. The strongest Kraftwerk comparisons can be made in "Short Winding", which is a short but strongly mechanically driven powerhouse that features robotic vocalizations, and "Without Apparent Limits (Part 1)", a murky industrialized track that also features a short section of robotic vocalization but mainly gives off an atmosphere similar to that of Resident Evil 0 soundtrack.

Although less pleasantly (or happily) dreamy, Sequences is still plenty as eclectic as its predecessor while maintaining the industrialized atmosphere, which surprises me considering that I previously thought industrial tones to be very limited in versatility. "Garden of Shadows" is indeed a very shadowy and nearly ambient piece that continuously swells and bears down atonally over a consuming groan. In opposition to the supreme darkness of the majority of this album, "Himalayas" is a very beautiful and uplifting, almost symphonic track that really does give off the triumphant feeling of standing atop a mountain and viewing snowy hills below.

The only qualm I have about Sequences is the final track, "Without Apparent Limits (Part 2)", which seems almost randomly put together and features a very tinny keyboard that sounds very cheap, and kind of breaks down the wonderful atmosphere that each previous track has established.

All in all, Sequences is a very pleasing album and a very welcome change in sound in Bocquet's discography. If you're a fan of Berlin school and electronic industrial music of any sort, you'll most likely enjoy this album. This is the Bocquet album that I'd recommend before any others..