“This is a superb album which delights from the first to the last breath with all the futuristic poetry of Ian Boddy”
1 The Probability of Doubt 7:14
2 Lost and Found 5:46
3 Slide 6:57
4 Tourmaline 7:40
5 A Moment of Gliss 3:43
6 Yesterdays Memories 7:38
7 Mechamystical 5:27
8 Troubadour 5:01
9 The Possibility of Existence 6:38
(DDL 56:23) (V.F.)
(Ambient, Electronica, Berlin School)
Welcome to the strange world of Ian Boddy. The founder of DiN Records is to EM what Tim Burton is to cinema, the finesse of contemporary art with fantastic nods to the obsolescence of masterpieces. However, Ian Boddy is far from being a novice on the EM scene. SLIDE is already his 16th solo album, him who has made albums with Robert Rich, Mark Reuters and Mark Shreeve for the very Berlin School duo of Arc. SLIDE for glide, for drift. But also, for flowing music like on a slide guitar or rather a slide synth. It's a superb album of daring music which will appeal as much to lovers of a contemporary EM as of Berlin School, because Ian Boddy transcends the 2 worlds with an astonishing approach on unexpected paces as clear as the rocks which climb the mountains torrents. Rhythms stuffed with a synth with legato undulations which bewitch in a universe stigmatized by the massive use of Martenot waves, making up almost the entire album of ethereal incantations.
And yet it's very timidly that SLIDE starts with The Probability of Doubt and its Tibetan gongs. An ecclesiastical intro overhung by an enveloping mellotron synth whose layers embrace the piety of the moment. Strata which are threatening and whose spectral laments wave on an unbalanced ticking, timidly marrying a sonority of chains which accompanies the nocturnal march of the ghosts. Continuing its spectral approach, Lost and Found begins with Martenot waves which act like ectoplasmic laments on a structure which comes lively with fluttering cymbals and a synth to the breaths of a guitar which flows under percussions with guttural effects and where harmonious phases slip with enchantment. When we talk about strangeness! The title-track begins with percussions which flap like the wings of a dragonfly on a waving synth and an undulating bass. It's a good track, the one that hooks the most from the first listen, with its ascending crescendo on spectral waves and a rhythm transforming into a soft techno. Delicious! Tourmaline offers a frantic race that begins in a debonair way. A hyper nervous sequence draws a neurotic cadence that a synth envelops in a morphic tenderness. But the rhythm persists and is unleashed under a mellotron synth, a catchy melody and an undulating Berlin School sequence torpedoed by heterogeneous sound effects. A very beautiful title which is at the image of the musical world of Ian Boddy and which pleases from the first moments.
After the soporific A Moment of Gliss, which spreads its Martenot waves like a seagull caught in a wind turbulences, Yesterdays Memories takes us into the rhythmic universe of Arc with a good hesitant and heavy sequence coupled with a feverish synth with jumping chords. The atmospheric heaviness of the English duo is present with these reverberating echoes which mask some fine xylophonated percussions and those technoïd tsitt-tsitt cymbals which team with synth's spectral waves. Moreover, Yesterdays Memories is the beginning of a more lively musical section, showing the passion for unusual and innovative rhythms that inhabits Ian Boddy. Built in the same mold, Mechamystical is lighter even with its heavy resonant percussions which fluctuate irregularly under a synth with apocalyptic waves. A synth that abandons its spectral side to offer good solos on a pace that has become clearer. It's a bit like in Troubadour which offers on the other hand a more neurotic cadence under an avalanche of notes which tumble through a very lyrical synth. A nervous track with a spasmodic rhythm and a heavy pulsation which oscillates between techno and disco, chewed by a rebellious synth with spectral waves which flit innocently in a hammering rhythm. The Possibility of Existence is the calm after the rhythmic storm started by Yesterdays Memories. A nice ambient title where the Martenot spectral waves resurface, like the lamentations of sated and serene whales in the black blue of an ocean of tenderness. It's a very nice way to conclude a superb and surprising opus which delights from the first to the last breath with all the futuristic poetry of Ian Boddy. To get!
Sylvain Lupari (December 17th, 2010) *****
Available at DiN Bandcamp
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