“Elemental offers 8 tracks which teem of a rhythmic life halfway between Arc and the very eclectic universe of Ian Boddy”
1 Never Forever 3:13
2 Stormfront 5:55
3 If all the World Was Blue 4:52
4 Foundry 7:38
5 Reflex 9:37
6 Flux 6:02
7 All Roads Lead to Home 7:37
8 Elemental 7:14
(DDL 52:11) (V.F.)
(Progressive EM, Cosmic, Ambient, Berlin School)
After Aurora, I continue my discovery of Ian Boddy's charming musical world with the ELEMENTAL album. A different album it is because more down-to-earth and less cosmic with a more rhythmic side and just as much melodious approach. This album offers 8 tracks which are linked and teem with a rhythmic life halfway between Arc and the very eclectic, sometimes industrial universe, of the English synthesist. A very nice album that makes us discovers another facet of this pioneer of contemporary EM and founder of DiN Records.
Never Forever begins this new musical adventure with fine and twinkling arpeggios of which the echo is hiding into slow synth layers that waltz and entwine around a melodious mellotron mist. Nice and short Never Forever frees its last chords in the nebulous oceanic intro of Stormfront where hesitating pulsations from a heavy bass line draw a rhythm which staggers besides keys of an electric piano. A soft mellotron fog wraps this uncertain beat, a little like the mystic universe of Arc, and floats above these e-piano keys which dance of a crystal clear and random pace, conferring to Stormfront an at once melodious and mysterious ambiance. A fine metallic shower unites Stormfront to If all the World Was Blue, a short track with hybrid ambiances which crowned the intro of Stormfront. Foundry is as much brilliant than delicious. A cooing line of bass encircles an intro with metallic sonorities. Quite early, percussions and a syncopated sequence shape the bass circle and form a surprising rhythm dipped in steel and which waves among nice melodious chords. Percussions strikes with anvil resonances adorn its lively pace which is wrapped of nice mellotron pads, always dressing Boddy's music of a mysticism and bewitchment aura, before falling in its finale with floating industrial vibes to join the very ambivalent Reflex.
Emerging out of a slow intro stuffed with metallic tones and scattered percussions, Reflex is waking up with a hypnotic pulsating beating. Some flickering cymbals and a soft mellotron synth wrap these strange metallic percussions which unfold with a stroboscopic approach. The slow rhythm, encircled by the vibrating oscillatory pulsations of a bass line, marries the spectral lamentations of a synth line. Reflex evolves thus quietly on a pace fed by a lot of electronic and metallic tones before merging in the very ambient and atmospheric Flow and its floating synth layers. Although less heavy, All Roads Lead to Home is a crossing between Stormfront and Reflex with its uncertain rhythm oscillating between hypnotic strikes and pulsations that make our feet trample as well as its fine melody forged in delicate crystal-clear chords. Fine pads roam in oblivion whereas twinkling arpeggios swirl delicately on Elemental's opening. It's a very nice cosmic Bolero where hatched chords get grafting to this dance of stars. The rhythm is getting heavier and becomes more dramatic with its percussions rolling beneath a sky streaked of synth layers which illuminate a dark astral procession. It's a very nice track that crowns another Ian Boddy's finest album which definitively deserves that we discover this artist for whom the name seems more known than its immense skill and wonderful music.
Sylvain Lupari (April 13th, 2011) *****
Available at DiN Bandcamp
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