ATOMINE ELEKTRINE

— First review of this album —

In a quiet unimpressive year for Progressive Electronic releases it is kind of astonishing that Atomine Elektrine's 2016 "The Second Moon" delivers one of the few original surprises of this sub-genre this year.

I myself could not be happier that Peter Andersson aka Atomine Elektrine continues to keep his distance away from the variation of pulses and sequencer lines derived from the the Berlin School's & the US West Coast's sounds, adopted and transfigured by the 70's super famous Progressive-Electronic musicians which nowadays in the hands of "modern" P/E's musicians usually become repetitions of Tangerine Dream's and Klaus Schulze's 70's works...ad nauseam!

Anyway, how nice to sense that not everyone is satisfied in sounding like someone else and less forever!

Atomine Elektrine sets in this release a slow paced, minimalistic and Cosmic direction with attractive atmospheres, straight forward good music composition and a perfect running time. By simplifying both Berlin & West Coast methods, he mantains the bare essentials yet his dronescape like approach, on each track (there are 6), keeps, as told, a healthy distance from ready made cliches, triggering due to the same creative structures which are original, rich, transparent and hypnotic.

Best of all you will not be reminded of anyone else but Atomine Elektrine which considering the above should be regarded as daring even plausible, although in a perfect P/E world this should be the rule and not the exception.

**** 4 PA stars.

Ferry docking

I know what the previous two reviewers have said about this outing, but I honestly don't hear the obvious Berlin School electronics on this. Of course - it is almost impossible to make soothing soundscape-like progressive electronic music without the odd traces of either Schulze or Froese, but this Swedish venture does have its own quality to it. It is first and foremost modern in expression. I hear a wide variety of electronic emanations on this one, that actually sit much closer to Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada than anything coming out of the two German deities' respective outputs.

The music is orbital - slowly developing in circles and sounding like vapour music or maybe the way steam generates. Through massive usage of sequencers and eerie synthesizers - these pieces prance along to the unmistakeable sound of a humongous ferry getting ready to port. That's what my head is telling me that is. You know that slow moving "state", where this giant vessel is approaching the harbour's edge in what seems like real life rendition of slow motion. Add to this slightly mental metaphor a multitude of differentiating laser guns zapping away in the midst of things. These are probably synth generated, but they still feel clinical, robotic and precise like a future invisible scalpel slicing itself into your brain with the utmost accuracy.

Peter Andersson is one of the rare Swedish electronic performers, and with this 2007 release he sure cements his name as one highly original musician in a world of a 1000 Tangerine Dream wanna-bees. The only thing about this music, that I personally feel hark back to the German 1970s - is the way he plays around with the sounds of the ocean, and people who know me around these parts, probably also know that I absolutely adore the sounds of the sea in my music - especially if it's introduced into some tasty Krautrock or swampy Electronic. The first cut here openly incorporates washes of waves - sounding natural and adding to the piece a sense of serenity and fluidity. On other occasions the ocean is presented to the listener as transformed radio signals of gentle white noise getting tweaked and contorted to fit the overall ambiance of the track. So even when we are deeply submersed in sonic electronic ferries docking with all these clonking noises - reverberating like church bells, - we are still manhandled by the whims of the ocean.

How best to describe this album? The television starts a recording career on the basis of finding true gentle melody lines buried in between the static noise of an empty channel, - or maybe beats conjured up by the inner grooves of your old vinyl records - you know when you only get that intimate crackling sound, and all the music is over - just listening to the record spin around on its own axis? Nebulous sounds like that.

I grew up in Denmark watching a very popular cartoon called Cirkeline. She was this tiny little girl who slept in a matchbox and had mice as friends. Often when I listen to this album, I get these images of Cirkeline along with her two friends Ingolf and Frederik - playing a somewhat wild and rhythmically enhanced take on tick tack toe from the insides of a matchbox. Little tiny rattlesnake jitters - shaking along to the docking ferry. Mice percussionists perhaps?

I'd recommend Nebulous to people who are trying to expand their collection of chill out music - to people who want to be swept away by chanting sea vessels in slow cosmic oozing mode. This album is as relaxing as it gets, but it's also very hypnotic and trance inducing. Feels like a million cyborg insects trying to grab a hold of your soul - with one specific little girl involved in the mix wearing a red dress with small black dots on it. They call her Cirkeline.

I am not a fan of electronic, my experience there is as deep as some early albums of Kraftwerk,Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream are. Brian Eno is a little bit different case, I am more interested in his ambient and non-ambient works.

The only reason I noticed this band (project?) is it's very unusual name ( at least for me). It is not very usual, when Swedish band has pure lithuanian name, which means " Nuclear Power Station". Yes, we have one, a big one, and it should be closed till the end of 2009. I think , there were some electronic music happenings around this station some time ago, so possibly it is a reason ( and the source) of that strange name.

About music. It wasn't easy to find the CD, but I got it. The music is dark ambient, quite nice , even melodic constructions. As any ambient ,this music is static by it's origin, but all this sound performs pleasant atmosphere.

As I told above, I can compare this album with some Eno ambient works only ( because this music is really far from Germans works). In fact, album didn't sound boring or very repetetivous. For music without rhythm and structure it isn't bad at all. It reminded me one of fresh Robert Fripp ambient live album as well.

Quite accessible ambient music, should be really interesting for modern ambient lovers.

— First review of this album —

Peter Andersson is the founder and former member of a few renowned astral-psych ambient projects (Raison D'être...). Under the name Atomine Elektrine, he follows the course of vintage cosmic-spacey music (Klaus Schulze, Robert Schroeder...) under more asceptic-technologic-rythmical considerations. The synthesized ambiences are incredibly relaxing, droney and brainey, largely made of slow moving synthscapes, sci-fi electronic interferences and abstract echoing rythms. Eternal dreaminess that reaches listener into supernatural or cosmic-universes localised beyond mind. Archimetrical universe is a mysterious evocative and tellurian musical trip that renew with the best things offered by old spacey rock electronics. However the electronic equipments used for this brilliant essay is contemporary to the musical production of our time, without reminiscence of primitive electronic machinery. Nothing really innovative or challenging but an absorbing listening due to the ominpresence of burgeonning- dense spherical synth waves. A nice introduction to Peter Andersson's fruitful musical career.

This album is simply prodigious and develops the most brilliant elements to define the progressive electronic genre in a modern / contemporary way. Peter Andersson is at the head of many musical projects, but I'm only familiar with Atomine elektrine which already represents a standard in the development of sonic, cinematic electronic ambiences. In Nebulous the atmosphere is beautifully ethereal without being new agey, it's very consistent, always inspired with dynamic / moving electronic textures and tumultuous melodies. Transforming Space starts this intersidereal electronic voyage with a number of floating synth waves that progressively turn into a comsic madness with eally vibrant, immersive electronic patterns (much more refined than Tangerine Dream's pompous electronic arpeggios) and abstract noises & drones. Energy net is a deep cerebral trip made of post industrial effects and echoes. In Between Spaces is a more poetical-introspective affair with dense lysergic synth strings and an ocean of molecular noises. Deep Sky Twilight is a static, dreamy-like composition, really spacious stuff with gorgeous floating synth strates. A really nice modern experimental electronic album with lot of variations and subtle arrangements. A little classic, not a difficult listening and accessible to everyone.