“Fans of good old Berlin School, of sequencer-based style; Oscillations is for you”
1 Part I 25:05 2 Part II 27:50 Javi Canovas Music
(DDL 52:55) (V.F.) (Vintage Berlin School)
OSCILLATIONS ends a very 2016 productive year for Javi Canovas with a return to basics. A return to the roots of pure Berlin School. Built upon two long music structures, of an average time of 26 minutes, which are organized on phases of rhythms in continual movement, this 4th opus of the Canary Islands' own synth wizard in 2016 exploits the themes of Berlin School with this sound so particular to the atmospheres of Javi Canovas.
A small fluty jet releases a series smoke eruptions which hide sequences starved for rhythm under construction, for rhythm in demolition. Part I begins this last sound journey of JC in 2016 with a swarm of sequences which flicker quickly in a circular movement. Then a synth unwinds acrobatic solos while other sequences soaked of organic tones try to substitute the rhythm to those a little more analog tone. Some nice synth tears caress this first transformation of Part I whose rhythm without column scatters its sequences in synth layers which waltz slowly and with melancholy. This first rhythmic demolition of Part I stretches its sufferings up to the doors of the 8th minute when OSCILLATIONS proposes a good ambient rhythm for the next 9 minutes. The sequencer throws a first line of bass sequences from which the hesitating gap in the furtive and circular movement allows another line of sequences to releases keys which jump promptly in a tube too narrow to make the rhythm overflow. The effect gives a steady rhythm where we roll of the neck and we tap fingers while the harmonies, some are sequenced, come from a synth and from its weeping soloes. This is good Berlin School with a psychotronic touch a la Neuronium in their years of electronic boldness. The finale is as much muddled up as the opening with pieces of rhythms which seek to get in a proper order of beat. Good Javi Canovas!
Part II proposes the same ill-assorted tangent as the 25 minutes of Part I. The intro is made of nice layers which float with a meditative effect. The nuances are good, going from joy to greyness. The rhythm turns up at around the 2nd minute with a horde of sequences which hunt those pensive fragrances by a lively movement which makes us travel in the years of Tangerine Dream's Encore. The tiny differences in the skeleton of rhythm and the gyrating effects of the movement are as attractive as these synth solos which roam like to hang on a sigh to our memories. Magnetizing, this first rhythmic phase of Part II gets lost in clouds of ether and in the twisted lamentations of a synth in mode as meditative as psychotronic. And it’s the moment chosen by Javi Canovas to present wild rhythmic phase with a furious rotary movement which rolls under the mute blows of a bass line and especially under attacks of a synth with solos as much vertiginous as the loops of rhythms. It's like a rhythmic roller coaster which go and come in audacious solos and floating layers which will seek farther for a den of serenity. It's the wildest, the most livened up moment of OSCILLATIONS. And this structure of rhythm doesn't die in the 17th minute. Oh that not! It returns, weakened and tamed by these divinatory layers, for a last lap which is just well measured in order to justify another listening of another good album from Javi Canovas who always manages to play one's card right, even in this year of massive production. Fans of sequencer-based style, this is for you. Sylvain Lupari (May 3rd, 2017) ***½**
Avaiable at Javi Canovas Bandcamp
Comments