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------Mythos
- Live |
| STYLE |
|
Strident
Berlin school electronica. Mythos Live has a clean dynamic
sound, sharp synth melodies and deft keyboard work driven
by energetic programmed beats and pumping basslines. The mix
is a muscular, sinewy affair - overlaying pure synthetic patterns
of a clearly European nature. There are euphoric builds and
climactic chorus sections with frequent shifts and variations
as tracks progress. However, the chances are that you know
that already if you're looking at this classic re-release
... originally described by the press as "a short, but
inventive and shining jewel in the swamp of everyday music"
- this might be the only way you're going to get your hands
on this music presently. |
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| MOOD |
|
The
three tracks here have a similar nature - energetic and sweeping
with propulsive beats. The dramatic phrasing and disciplined
arrangements push forward with powerful momentum almost suggestive
of a militaristic structure at times. |
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| ARTWORK |
|
This
is a mini disc in a card envelope protected by a plastic blister.
The card envelope has a front opening flap forming three graphic
surfaces in total. The cover imagery is simple and graphic
- a bright green structural venue outline supporting the contrasting
pink Mythos logo. That said - the re-release of this music
is intended for digital release in download form available
from the Mythos
website or from Kazzong - both locations offer a prelistening
feature. |
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| OVERALL |
|
This
maxi single is a re-release of the Mythos Live album that
sold out quite some time back. Due to frequent demands from
fans the music is now delivered in download format. The original
discs are currently collector's items with only a few copies
in circulation making purchase prohibitive for most fans due
to high pricing. Should this approach be what the fans are
after, you can expect more downloadable music in the near
future. |
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| WHO
WILL LIKE THIS ALBUM |
|
Mythos
fans need no introduction to this requested re-release - for
the rest - Mythos live will appeal to lovers of Berlin synthesiser
music with plenty of dramatic rhythm and pacey percussion.. |
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 |
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------Blind
Divine - Music For Unmade Movies Volume 1 |
| STYLE |
|
Art
music sketches and scenarios - mostly instrumental but a
couple of tracks featuring female vocals. This album reads
like an intimate collection of keepsakes and personal treasures
- brief fragments and atmospheres each full of character
- you never quite know what the next piece will be like.
Scratchy sound canvases, wistful piano lines, cinematic
strings, delicate chimes, sampled noises are laid out like
memories in a scrap book. The downbeat drum lines are still
here in places as are some snatches of Paula Catherine Valencia's
vocals - indeed the sound is still very much Blind Divine,
yet the feel is heavily one of hazy nostalgia as though
each composition were a distant memory of the band, faded,
tinted with time. Spoken voices - effected and pitch-shifted,
the occasional ethnic element, moody synth work and material
that sounds like it has been recycled from old films all
add to the effect. |
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| ARTWORK |
|
Delivered
in a matt surface digipack Music For Unmade Movies is presented
as something of a worn artefact. The imagery has been distressed,
aged, built around timeless elements. A weary man in the moon
pierced with nails fronts the package surrounded by graphic
motifs and scrolling decoratives - muted, textured brown.
The reverse holds the timed tracklist. Opening out, the CD
sits on a black panel, facing this is a section of credits,
source information and contact details. Again the impression
given is that this is a document from the past - creased and
lined - somehow preserved. |
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| OVERALL |
|
Blind
Divine make something of a departure from their usual sound
here - the doleful trip hop songs of the previous albums loosened
up and allowed to meander where they will. In all thirty nine
tracks make up this fascinating collection of snapshots into
the imagination of the duo. Ranging from nine seconds through
to four minutes plus you could easily hear these pieces as
soundtrack material - indeed a number have already been used
on the feature film Orphans and Angels. |
|
 |
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------Hol
Baumann - [Human] |
| STYLE |
|
Clean downtempo
electronica with organic embellishments.
Hol Baumann’s sound has a meloancholy, sombre air to
it, European dignity and gravity shrouding the album like
a heavy urban mist – steady measured rhythms with the
low weight of somewhat mechanistic basslines, driving, downbeat
arrangements that deliver plenty of shadow. Sparse melodic
phrases and themes of synthetic tone and lush chimes repeat
and evolve interwoven with international vocal lines –
spoken, up-close, almost touching the ear; sung, lightly distorted,
thickened. Bright acoustic guitar lines and subtle global
instrumentation bring shafts of sunlight to the mix and glitchy
details enliven the drum programming. Intense at times, occasionally
introspective, contemporary nocturnes – Human is a high
quality debut with plenty of hidden depths. |
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| ARTWORK |
|
Human
comes in standard Ultimae format – gorgeous panoramic
visuals framed with broad black bands. Sharp photo-imagery
presents urban scenes enhanced with the atmospheric effects
of water – many of the shots are inverted reflections
in puddles, rippled, lightly distorted, edged with street
surfaces, littered with fallen leaves. Inside is a generous
sixteen page booklet with shots of the artist and a full page
evocative image for each track footed with only the briefest
of background details. Indeed text throughout the package
is kept to an elegant minimum encouraging the eye to linger
on the pictures. |
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| OVERALL |
|
Hol
Baumann is well known to Ultimae fans prior to the release
of this debut solo release, having appeared on numerous collections
Human delivers a powerful, consistent series of new compositions
that demonstrate a sure mastery over the digital tools of
the trade, the tracks sounding technically advanced whilst
maintaining a vivid musical vision throughout. Less drawn
to the ambient side of downtempo, Hol works with a gritty
sound that owes a little to Berlin synthesiser music, that
said the Ultimae house sound is more evident. |
|
 |
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------Bruno
Sanfilippo & Mathias Grassow - Ambessence :
------ ------ ---Piano
& Drones |
| STYLE |
|
Beautiful,
beautiful, soft, elegant piano melodies and subtle, enveloping
drones. Ambessence piano and drones sets a new level of blissful
dreaminess. Hazy, gossamer breathing strains with the lightest
of touches hang weightless, shapeless as if the very air itself
has been transformed into to music. Sometimes the underlying
sonic textures are so transparent they might simply be environmental
recordings, a thickening of emptiness. From within come the
most exquisitely delicate piano lines you might imagine, the
most sensitive of fragile forms, muted phrases and dulcet
progressions that seem to have all the time in the world in
which to unfurl - each fresh piece as beguiling, as graceful
as the last. The balance between melody and ambient space
is expertly worked so that you never quite feel that you are
listening to 'tunes' as such, yet the gradual, spacious unfolding
of these melancholy arrangements has you captivated - pulled
along like a fallen leaf on a stream. |
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| ARTWORK |
|
The
album cover features a photograph by Dianne Owen of what appear
to be Anton Gormley's Another Place figures from the Mersey
Estuary. Sculpted sentinels stand upright gazing through waves
of digital mists - serene, dignified, bathed in grey - attentive,
absorbed. This image recurs throughout the package in varied
form. On the reverse is a timed tracklist and a recommendation
on how to listen to the album. Within we find a portrait of
each musician set against a panel of credits, website details
and a breakdown of instrumentation. |
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| OVERALL |
|
Released
on Ad21 on the date of the label's 10th anniversary, this
latest release sees Argentinean Bruno Sanfilippo in collaboration
with the prolific German drone and overtone musician Mathias
Grassow. The seven tracks vary from just over six minutes
through to just short of fifteen - a total of one hour, one
minute and fifty seconds of pure escape. This release could
easily become a tranquil backdrop to your day should you wish
it - but if you actually give yourself over to it and listen
completely you will be transported, so far from daily life
is this musical place, a place of lightness, sleepy introspection
and safety. Such economical, fragile keyboard work inevitably
calls to mind the gentler compositions of Satie - yet these
musicians somehow manage to free their pieces almost of all
gravity altogether. I can't recommend this CD highly enough. |
|
 |
|
------Robert
Rich & Ian Boddy - React |
| STYLE |
|
Rhythmic
electronica and meandering abstraction. Two powerful musicians
come together to intermesh their sonic personalities - here
are drifting, keening threads of 'gliss lap steel guitar',
serene, wafting breaths of earthy flute, synthetic soundscapes
of intricate, morphing mists broken by glitchy fragments,
digital disturbances, exotic peculiarities - alien yet distantly
familiar. Sequential patterns ripple and propel; bass notes,
acidic pulses, sonorous blips intermixed - shifting beats
arise gradually into subtle regularity or at times into
driving energetic zeal. There are passages of spacey expanse
where static fragments breeze through amorphous folds of
tone. There are vaguely tribal beats - rough drum forms
and weighty ethnic chimes deep in the mix - a lot of sound
and variety for just two performers. |
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| ARTWORK |
|
In
usual DiN format React comes in a clear jewel case with
a single fold insert. The cover imagery is an ambiguous
series of photographs appearing to be filaments of cloud
combed across a backdrop of restless indigo waves. No words
disturb the visuals - text is instead laid into white strips
bordering the package. Within we find a low light shot of
the artists in performance filling a whole panel - below
another white border of information. This time we get a
repeated tracklist (each timed) recording information, thanks
and a brief list of instrumentation for each artist. |
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| OVERALL |
|
Ian
Boddy and Robert Rich have, of course worked together previously
delivering two studio albums - Outpost back in 2001 and then
Lithosphere in 2005. This time we have something different
- a live performance from the duo recorded in June 2007 for
the Star’s End Radio Show 30th Anniversary Celebration
Concert in Philadelphia - their first! Eleven tracks of medium
length (from something over two minutes to just short of eight)
that go some way to covering the broad range of styles explored
by Boddy and Rich over the course of their rich careers. The
sound quality outshines expectations of live recording - audience
presence forgotten apart from the final fade. |
|
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------Various
- Tranchillizer |
| STYLE |
|
Downtempo
trance chillout compilation. Ethnic instrumentation punctuates
lazy electronic tapestries - as synthetic arpeggios and
cycling phrases wind around their measured rhythmic core,
didgeridoos, twanging Asian strings, voice snippets, natural
sounds and international drums thicken the mix. Much of
the musical structure here is atmospheric - melody lines
are brief and circular, rolling and layering into intricate
textural forms - smooth pads and airy strains drift through
the air particularly in evidence as tracks open or close.
There are a lot of quite acidic tones, psychedelic squirts
and pithy synthetic stabs here producing an overall sound
that is often sharp and fizzy, bubbling under as if ready
to overflow at any moment. |
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| MOOD |
|
The
hazy lilac hue of the cover puts the listener in mind of
scented smoke and gradually unfurling psychedelic imagery.
The feel of the music is overwhelmingly synthetic and contemporary
full of technical trickery and impressive sound sculpting,
yet there is also a lot of mood building going on here,
sonic forms slowly coming together, establishing patterns,
repeating into familiarity and then shifting. |
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| ARTWORK |
|
Complex
graphic designs overlay and fade into the fabric of the package
- everything tinted pale lilac. The impression is one of timeless
tribal influences transported into a modern framework - polished
and delivered afresh. The tracklist for the album appears
on the rear of the jewelcase and within on the booklet. The
innermost section features an illustration of a sleeping goddess
surrounded by floating phrases designed to set the mood -
BE STILL - LET TIME FLOW - GLIDE TO REST. |
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| OVERALL |
|
Tranchillizer
is the latest downtempo offering from Switzerland’s
psychedelic trance label Peak Records. Label masters Ajja
S.F. Leu, Master Margherita and Tanina Munchkina all appear
on the album along with a variety of other familiar names.
We have tracks from well known chillout artists and some unexpected
contributions from others better known for their more upbeat
output. |
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| WHO
WILL LIKE THIS ALBUM |
|
Tranchillizer
will be welcomed by fans of chillout that enjoy the approach
of psytrance music delivered with a lower bpm. Not aiming
at ambient groove or melodic downtempo this album is uneasily
tranquil - its heart touched by the things of the higher tempos
- lingering for now, 'tranchillized' revelling in the current
reverie. |
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