“There are scents of Derwish here and it's ok, so much both works complement each other due to their sound peculiarities”
1 Borderlands 7:39 2 Colour Division 9:10 3 Crescent 8:18 4 Fulcrum 6:57 5 Reveal 6:57 6 Beacon 9:05 7 Slowfall 4:32 DiN43
(CD/DDL 52:54) (V.F.)
(Prog EM, Ambient)
I have adored Ian Boddy & Markus Reuter's last collaboration. Derwish was an audacious album where abstract electronic structures flew on curt rhythms, a little like in the universe of King Crimson. COLOUR DIVISION is built around the same musical patterns, as for the ambient side and for the rhythmic structures, than Derwish. If the rhythms are less hard-hitting, the ambiences are always so intriguing, even disturbing. Here is a review about a seductive album where the music does more than drawing harmonies. It cements them skillfully in a musical world made of abstractions.
A synth snores shamelessly. Letting free its snores which inflate into long twists with resounding contours, the synth invites the lamentations of Markus Reuter's electric six-strings to weave an ambiospherical opening which flows on a bed of twinkling arpeggios to finally throws itself into a heavy rhythm, hammered by e-percussions and by their effects of echo. The hymn of heavy rock reminds me of Home by the Sea by Genesis. It's a rhythm which scatters its heaviness among ambient phases, there where spark arpeggios of glass and also cry passive guitar solos, to get reborn of its incisive strikings. It then and transports Borderlands towards a heavy progressive industrial e-rock which kisses the herculean madnesses of King Crimson. The solos, as well from Ian Boddy and Markus Reuter, decorate a boosted ambience which already places COLOUR DIVISION in a class of its own. After this first heavy track, the title-track plunges us into deep ambiospherical phases. A sonorous black hole where dark mourner lines are structuring an ambient pattern which supports marvellously the floating, dreamy and sometimes heart-rending solos from Markus Reuter who is inspiring and inspired. This is a very good track which sets the table to the ambient phase of the album. Dense veils of synth wrap the opening of Crescent, a bit like a night which covers itself of its blackness. The first two minutes are stunning with this slow nocturnal arisen. A line of bass draws a lunar beat that strata coming from a fusion of synth and guitar are caressing of soft laments. It's a deep cosmic ambient mood which gradually sinks into a Black Sea where oscillate some waves agitated of contrary spasms. Like carillons swirling in static winds, a small symphony of ringing awakens Fulcrum. It's the calm before a sound storm, because Fulcrum veils itself of a sonic schizophrenia which unscrews the eardrums. Riffs of guitars roars behind this glass pattern and plunge the track into a rhythmic heaviness where the pulsations shape a slow stealthy rhythm. A rhythm which beats hypocritically in a black ambience papered of insistent knocking, felted explosions, furious riffs and lamentations of a corrosive guitar which ululates of a profound sound pain. It's rather intense, just like Reveal, even if both structures are totally in contrast. It's a nice electronic litany very ambiospherical where we have difficulty in targeting the spectral lamentations of Ian Boddy's Serge Modular from the ghostly tears of Markus Reuter's wandering six-strings. The movement breathes of a ghost rhythm by means of a bass line which pulses such as a beat in agony. Disturbing of magnetism! The main attraction here is this constant duality between the synths and guitars which muddle up the hearing, so much the tones mix themselves in a perfect symbiosis. Like in Beacon where they cry in the fogs of percussions and of the felted jingles. Percussions which little by little get loose and structure a rhythm which bursts such as a popcorn in a test tube. The line of bass is pretty vicious and waves sneakily on this structure of rhythm so imperceptible than indefinable where cry, where sing this fascinating meshing synth/guitar. Slowfall ends this last work of the duo with a somber ambiospherical structure a bit apocalyptic where floats a scent of disaster splendidly painted by this mesmerizing fusion of eclectic tones.
Mixing subtly the heavy rhythms with some superb metaphysical industrial atmospheres, Ian Boddy and Markus Reuter sign a 4th opus which respects their avant-gardist musical visions. There are scents of Derwish behind this COLOUR DIVISION and it's correct, so much both works complement each other due to their sound peculiarities. Even if the rhythms are less heavy, less hard-hitting, the ambiences are blazing. And the chemistry between these rhythms and atmospheres is as much attractive than a water singing on corroded corals. It's a feast for the ears.
Sylvain Lupari (September 25th, 2013) *****
Available at DiN Bandcamp
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