“Remote Redux is a gem for ambient music that gets inside us and transports us by its strong musical current!”
1 Ma 8:34
2 Toma 7:22
3 Remote 5:54
4 Lontano 9:02
5 Redux 12:48
6 Toma (Extended) 11:16
(CD 55:06) (V.F.)
(Psybient, down-tempo)
Between Michael Stearns' oceanic panoramas, M'Oceans, and the best textures of caramelized ambiances of abstract melodies from Solar Fields, REMOTE REDUX is a gem for ambient music lovers of intuitive atmospheres. This music that gets inside us and transports us by its strong musical current! I know James Murray for hearing Eyes to the Height in 2016, and some remixed tracks on some Ultimae Records album-compilations. Francis M. Gri is a new name for my ears, as his music which seems to be designed in a minimalist-linear approach. The two tonal sculptors decided to unite their visions in a brilliant album of an unmatched depth that must necessarily be part of the most interesting ambient works in 2019.
It's by a sound shadow coming from the East that Ma installs the first dormant flutters of REMOTE REDUX between my ears. Notes fall like rain through a pierced dome, creating an evasive melody that makes us dream. Multiple of sonorous shadows are rippling like a finger creating its circles on a peaceful water, tuning their circular vibrations to waves of reverberations that isolate this melody strummed by a one finger pianist. This very melancholy pianist will lend his evanescent melodies to all the purposes and dimensions of this album. A bass line spreads its enveloping veil in Ma's background. The track blooms more and more, attaching a filament of intensity to its cupola. This first title of this first collaboration Murray/M.Gri seduced me from the first listen. Ditto with the ambient tumult surrounding Toma! Sharp streaks tear through its veil of ambient elements, where these starry notes and the detritus of a bass wave wander, sowing confusion between the serenity and anger of the musical particles crumbled in a static whirlwind. Gradually, a fascinating symbiosis sets in to light up a down-tempo that dances in a very ethereal way, a little like these swirl dances in M'Oceans, in a sound envelope proper to the psybient style. A superb title that deserves its extended version, which is less intense and more ambient. Remote is inspired by these sonic brush strokes that streaked the panorama of Toma in a more tumultuous approach where the luminescent rays of the sun pierce its opaque veil. After an opening on the seal of the melody, Lontano slips into the dark spheres of a music without envy. A dark music like a broth that twirls beneath the surface of a water muddled by harmonic breaths lost in the winds. This dark title enjoys the privileges of an astonishing vision of psybient in a lifeless universe. You have to hear the details! This sound aesthetic is more significant here, and oh so alluring in the 55 minutes of REMOTE REDUX and even more in Redux which is as beautiful as Ma, which is less beautiful than Toma and so on. A beautiful album that joins this pile of classics that accompany my openings to sleep. Actually Sandrine, I made a very beautiful discovery! Thank you…
Sylvain Lupari (October 20th, 2019) *****
Available at Ultimae Records Bandcamp
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