VOYAGE

"Voyage" continues where "Adventure" left off with more strange sonic cosmos and amazing percussive tones and moods. Essentially "Voyage" was a live in studio jam which got carried away one evening and was captured on tape for the world to enjoy. Once again we are surrounded by the electronic genius of Joel Vandroogenbroeck and his gang of merry men. "Voyage" seems to be more devoted to exploring the percussive side of their music in sharp contrast to "Adventure" and "Celestial Ocean". "Voyage Part 1" would certainly rank as one of my all time electronic Krautrock favs. 3 more bonus tracks have been included as well in the same vein as those found on "Adventure".

Back in 1973 after the release of Celestial Ocean, BRAINTICKET had pretty much disappeared. Eventually, around 1979 Joël Vandroogenbroeck resurrected BRAINTICKET, but this time, as an all-instrumental keyboard/percussion-dominated outfit with no guitars. Being the early '80s, there were no record labels willing to release this stuff, so Joël Vandroogenbroeck simply released this privately. "Voyage", being an early '80s recording, sounds suspiciously like a 1976 recording. Nothing '80s sounding here, the clavinet, Fender Rhodes electric piano Mini Moog and lots of other electronics and percussion dominate here!

The album simply consists of two side length cuts, all improvised, and the music turns out quite impressive. I heard somewhere that when Purple Pyramid reissued "Voyage", they accidentally used the music for the previous album, from 1980, called "Adventure", for this disc. If that's the case, that explains why Voyage sounds like it was released before "Adventure", even though it was released after. I have to get the LPs of both albums to know if that is true. But regardless, BRAINTICKET, in the early '80s, somehow forgot the '70s was over, and this album ends up being the most '70s sounding album I've heard from an early '80s release. Fascinating album, and if you like analog synths, you'll like this.

Brainticket's Voyage, like Adventure before it, sounds like an extended jam session edited to album length, and it probably is one - Krautrock being a scene fond of such albums. This approach had fallen out of favour by the 1980s, but as far as releases in the format go this one is actually pretty good, Brainticket managing to evoke a range of moods from spacey synth-dominated sections to disorienting percussive workouts with natural transitions from one to the next and the album never bogging down in aimless noodling. Not quite as confrontational and far out as Cottonwoodhill, it's a more contemplative listen which teases out another side of the group. I like it somewhat better than Adventure, the other album they released in the 1980s in the same vein, though ultimately neither album is as groundbreaking or as fascinating as their major 1970s works.

Warning: If you own the Purple Pyramid CD reissue of Voyage, you actually own Adventure, as both albums were accidentally swiped when reissued. So the review Im doing here goes actually to the real Voyage, which would be Adventure if you own the CD.

So, with an totally unchanged lineup of Joel Vandroogenbroeck, Barney Palm, Hans Deyssenroth, and Wilhelm Seefeldt, they recorded another album together, in February 1982. While Adventure was recorded during several sessions between May 1979 and January 1980 (and you can tell that, because music on there often had several abrupt changes), Voyage was all recorded all in one night, all improvised (it even states: "There were no rehearsals. We let the music flow out of our hands. We hope you enjoy it"). That's easy to believe, given there don't appear to be as much abrupt change as was on Adventure. To be honest, Voyage didn't quite left my mind blown the way of Adventure, but I still found it very enjoyable. At a time Duran Duran inflicted us with Rio (and that video of some lady wearing a purple plastic bag dress and the Duran Duran guys on a yacht), Joel Vandroogenbroeck seemed totally unaware of the changes, the music is still firmly in the '70s progressive electronic vein. Lots of clavinet, electric piano, Moog, with a more experimental bent than Adventure. Lots of gamelan and other percussion still used. There are some calm moments as well as some really tripped out moments. Listening to this, you'd think it came out in the late '70s. None of the keyboardists seem to come anywhere near a Prophet 5 or an OBXa, sticking to the trusted mid '70s stuff.

Bonus tracks (that is, the CD to Adventure, even though that's not the correct album), once again, of unknown origin. Joel Vandroogenbroeck, by this point, had released a ton of library music albums on Coloursound, but they weren't available to the general public (available to television, radio, and production companies interested), and only with the coming of the Internet had these albums been made aware of to the general public. None of these bonus cuts came from any of these albums. "Machinery (Analog 1970)" isn't from 1970. I'm guessing 1983 (after Voyage), sounds like Joel Vandroogenbroeck finally started including some early '80s polyphonic synths (sounds like an Oberheim OBXa) but the old '70s stuff like the clavinet are still being used. This one is more aggressive than "Skyline (Analog 1970)" (from the CD of Voyage, which is actually Adventure). "3 Worlds" is a really strange piece that goes through three changes. "Robotika" is a strange, percussive mechanical piece, appropriate for such a title.

This era of Brainticket is quite underrated. To me, this is how I wished the early '80s were like, not the era of MTV and Duran Duran. Given Joel Vandroogenbroeck was in his 40s at that time, it's obvious he had no use for stuff like that (his background was jazz, but he was open to the psychedelic and space rock scene of the early '70s, as well as world music, like gamelan), and gladly carried on like the '70s were still happening. His library albums after 1982 did show that he started adjusting to the times by including digital synthesizers (as well as the bonus cuts on both the CDs of Adventure and Voyage).

So if the review doesn't make sense, remember that the albums were accidentally switched when reissued on CD. I should know, years after I bought the CDs, I bought the original LPs, which cleared up a whole lot of confusion for me.

Really, Voyage is worth having but I felt Adventure is better.