“This new album stands out from his previous ones by its velocity and its rage”
1 Kindred Spirits 46:32
2 Biospherical Remixed Imagery 14:36
3 Secret Place 6:16
Independant Music
(CD-r 67:29) (V.F.)
(Improvised England School)
This is a new Create album that will not go down in history. Released on an independent label and in a limited number of 50 cd-r (sic!), KINDRED SPIRITS aroused as much curiosity as a new Redshift or Gert Emmens album. That's how much, with the help of the internet, Stephen Humphries has reached the status of a must-have artist in such a short time. This new album stands out from his previous ones by its velocity and its rage. Create is simply on fire and delivers an extremely powerful album whose only problem is the quality of its recording.
Presented at the E-Live Festival in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, on October 15, 2005, the long title-track is an epic one divided into 7 parts. And it begins with a low hum that builds to cosmic sound effects and static layers of a stationary synth that seeks to enhance its sonic richness. And throughout Kindred Spirits, Create will multiply these heavy, rich and spongy layers. They will stick to the multiple modulations and phases of heavy rhythms. Like the one that follows this intro. A huge beat, slow like a heavy rock which turns lasciviously, in a surprising gesture for a EM track. A fluty mellotron gets stick to the movements which vary the intensities and the rhythms, following untiringly its cadenced escalation. Moreover, each ambient phase is followed by this rhythm that increases its intensity, giving an amplification effect that will go up to a soft techno beat that comes alive towards the end of Kindred Spirits. Meanwhile, we reach the 13th minute and already the rhythm and the structure are not the same. Under virulent solos and abrupt modulations, Stephen Humphries tames the rhythms and modulations through his intense strata and superb mellotron blasts that combine rough structures with atmospheric moments. A great track with dynamic, even voracious sequences and pulsations, which reserves us some surprises, including a succulent hypnotic sequence, which takes shape around the 31st minute. Kindred Spirits is definitely the biggest track Create has written so far. And how good it would be re-recorded in the studio?! As the title suggests, Biospherical Remixed Imagery is a reworked and shorter version of Biospherical Imagery, from last year's self-titled album. Performed live, Create has focused more on the rhythmic side than the atmospheric one, plunging KINDRED SPIRITS even more into a very sequenced and cadenced universe. Secret Place ends this last opus on a more serene, more ethereal note. Recorded in the Backroom Studio, it was the music designated to open Create's performance at the E-Live festival. Indeed, it would have been a very effective opening to the overblown Kindred Spirits.
What an evolution since the release of Reflections From The Inner Light in 2004! Stephen Humphries is making giant steps that make him stand out in this rising generation of EM musicians. I have rarely heard so many rhythms in a track as long as the title-track. Too bad for the quality of the recording, otherwise it would certainly be one of the best album of 2005.
Sylvain Lupari (April 4th, 2007) *****
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