“This is a good album where the cosmos is witness of a minimalist music on imperceptible rhythms”
1 Kingston Coffee 9:58
2 Magnetic Miles 11:17
3 Electronic Medication 38:04
4 Black Body Ballad 9:50
(DDL 69:11) (V.F.)
(Berlin School, Ambient)
EM inspires more and more some young artists who are inspired by pioneers' works such as those of Klaus Schulze or Jean-Michel Jarre. And it's these inspirations that guided the very first work of the Belgian musician Evert Vandenberghe and his project Nisus. ELECTRONIC MEDITATION is his first album. An album which turns around 4 long tracks with minimalist approaches perturbed by fine variations while being lined by attractive melodies tinted with cosmic crystals.
Sequences and keys skipping like balls in a too small abacus for all to contain them are starting the delicate approach of Gang Street that introduces the peacefully chaotic rhythm of Kingston Coffee. This claustrophobic rhythm feeds the rhythmic structures of the album which fluctuate between a slow and a mid-tempo hampered to be mixed up in soft technoïd approach. It skips slowly on Kingston Coffee with a passive approach which ignites with keys in muffled and glaucous tones, stamping on a minimalist lineal movement pecked of sober knocks of percussions and subtle variations which are perturbing its tranquility. Without being dominant on the whole album, the synths draw cosmic lines which coo, stammer and roll in loops to raise young harmonies in a cosmic magma fill by the analog tones of JMJarre. These sequenced keys which vibrate to create the illusion of a heavy rhythm are also welcoming Magnetic Miles which takes the appearances of a comfortable cosmic funk and which would have been able to be a suite, maybe it’s this, to Kingston Coffee so much the rhythms and analog ambiences are alike in there, but on a more accentuated rhythm. Electronic Medication offers a slow intro splashed with patches of jerky fogs which expire gases of mist under the cooings of synth to morphic harmonies. We are floating in a cosmos soaked of tetanized ambiences, like on the first works of Schulze. A murky pulsation pops out at around the 14th minute, offering a destabilized rhythmic approach which quickly increases the pace with an enchanting undulation to finally nest towards a cosmic mid-tempo where the vapors of ether get dissipate little by little on a more steady rhythmic progress. The resonant sequences are stumbling of a repetitive grace, borrowing the movements of the first 2 titles and pushing the evolution of Electronic Medication towards a soft cosmic techno. This is a very good track where the minimalist side is skillfully covered by fine variations which make a passive listening as fascinating as pleasant under beautiful lines to repetitive semibreve harmonies. Black Body Ballad ends ELECTRONIC MEDITATION with the same approach that fed this first opus of Nisus. A little faster, the tempo skips with the delicacy of a soft mid-tempo or a morphic techno that lines of synth decorate of fine ornamental melodies while wrapping Black Body Ballad of a layer of violin veil, like those synth-pop of the New Wave years.
With fine variations, as rhythmic as atmospheric, which charm on musical patterns rather ELECTRONIC MEDITATION is a rather good album where the cosmos, and our ears, are the witnesses a fight of jumping keys stamping on a minimalist music in rhythms as imperceptible as hypnotic. I quite liked well this first opus of Evert Vandenberghe, a.k.a. Nisus, who demonstrates a beautiful maturity at the level of the control of his atmospheres, a bit tetanised of rhythmic chloroform, which free a soft hypnotic perfume which caresses the hearing as if Klaus Schulze (post Dreams) would meet Jean Michel Jarre in an oniric cosmos.
Sylvain Lupari (September 21th, 2012) ***½**
Available at Nisus Bandcamp
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