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Writer's pictureSylvain Lupari

Perceptual Defence & Syndromeda Live at Cosmic Nights 2017 (2018)

Updated: Oct 11, 2022

In a pretty good balance between ambient and rhythmic phases,Live at Cosmic Nights 2017 shows above all that this duo is not at the end of resources

1 Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 1 16:52 2 Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 2 16:29 3 Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 3 12:40 4 Sounds from the Obscurity of the Dark Matter 8:13 5 Twilight Experience 19:45 Luna PDSS004

(CD-r/DDL 74:00) (V.F.) (Cosmic Berlin School)

The End of the Universe was supposed to loop the loop of the intersidereal adventures of the duet Perceptual Defence & Syndromeda. This last album was the most ambient of the trilogy and followed this merciless logic that after the end.... there is nothing more. The thing is, the Italo-Belgian duo was preparing in their respective studio an unexpected suite which would be revealed within the framework of this important festival of EM; Cosmic Nights. And the duet could not hope to find better as place of preference than this disused factory of compressed air failed on the ice floes of the Earth at Heusden-Zolder, Belgium, to performance its new intergalactic odyssey. It's under the stars, and in a stunning décor, on an evening of May 2017 that the long act of Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space took place. And it’s important to specify it and to take good note there, because LIVE AT COSMIC NIGHTS 2017 belongs to a tangible suite to The End of the Universe.

Noises of a space shuttle which has reached the end of its cosmic trip open Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 1. A dialogue between a man and a woman settles down then. Breaking a heavy silence, the woman asks where they are. They are at the end of everything, of the universe where there is nothing more… except silence. This staging is followed by a field magnetic of sound waves with some long oscillating lines which undulate in a horizontal structure where the space waltzes with its sound elements, of which a constant rush of stellar waves. The slow introduction of Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 1 is well decorated with these swells of stars and where get add hollow breezes, cosmic chirpings and muffled snores of a subterranean machine. It's moreover these humming which become the rhythmic armature of a long introduction. The rhythm skips with a tonal color as organic as vintage. Clatter get grafted, introducing a very good movement of the sequencer which releases another livelier and more adventurous line of rhythm. Although always ambient, and always under the hold of stellar waves, this motionless rhythm, rich in random beatings of sequences, decreases a little its cadence, and its tonal strength, to stimulate the synths which throw solos and phases of lunar harmonies as much disparate than the fruit of the sequencers. A structure faithful to the artistic vision of the duet with 6 minutes of rhythm for 10 minutes of cosmic atmospheric elements. A structure that we also find in Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 2 where this time the rhythm buzzes in the middle of the track and in a decor of dark and shady lunar atmospheres. On a phase of 5 good minutes, Perceptual Defence and Syndromeda lay down here a structure which bubbles a la Silver Scale, there will be no explosion however, where synth layers, very Tangerine Dream of the same time, are as much charming as unexpected.

Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 3 reaches a kind of zenith here for the ambient noises and effects of rhythm which circulate like the slings of a huge catapult. The meshing of these effects gives a fascinating dimension and it's with amazement that a structure of rhythm spreads its vampiric shadows and is gamboling like a stride of kicks from wild ponies. Perceptual Defence and Syndromeda structure parallel rhythms patterns which make their lines oscillate in good interlaced impetus. Percussive noises add weight to this structure a bit wild which stretches the fruits of the sequencer for a good 6 minutes before that Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 3 ends Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space in the greediness starving of nothingness. The best of LIVE AT COSMIC NIGHTS 2017 is here. Although the encore, Sounds from the Obscurity of the Dark Matter, is not bad at all with a strong presence of the sequencers which make roll their sound balls on a mad conveyor. A little as in the structure of rhythm in Two Aliens conversating in the Silent Space Phase 1, it's the dance of sequenced balls in a sound textile without oxygen, and those who like these spasmodic rhythms and without girdle of cohesion will be delighted again.

The album includes a title composed by distance, between Italy and Belgium, and recorded in studio; Twilight Experience. We seize very well Gabriele Quirici's presence with the pack of oscillating lines which undulate swiftly and coo as the dialect of a troop of pigeons under hypnosis. After a short period of atmospheres of an abandoned land, the universe of Syndromeda blows between our ears with a movement of organic sequences of which the fragile ascent crosses a wall of glass dusts and quirky noises which we can certainly associate with the tonal colors of twilight. And so, goes the vision of the Italo-Belgium duo who through this LIVE AT COSMIC NIGHTS 2017 seems, but not at all, at the end of resources.

Sylvain Lupari (January 27th, 2018) ***¾**

Available at SynGate Bandcamp

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