“It's a quiet and nice ambient album with perfumes of Eno/Fripp which deserves a second one”
1 The Fermi Paradox 8:26
2 Firmament 19:15
3 The Ooda Loop 9:56
4 Frame 313 7:11
5 The Ooda Loop (Reprise) 4:18
6 Point of View 11:50
(feat Steve Roach)
(CD/DDL 61:02) (V.F.)
(Tribal Ambient soundscapes)
A big resonant step, or a big pulsating pulse, announces the soundscapes of this new opus released on Timeroom, the label of Steve Roach. His name is written in good visibility on the cover, but you should know that he only appears on the last POV track; Point of View. So, the resonance radiates over two minutes where multi layers of synth are ejected like the effect of gas by a vaporizer. The first jets revolve around the dark shadows of a synth before a guitar filament throws some translucency to The Fermi Paradox. From this moment, our ears become overwhelmed by this duel of sounds between Miles Richmond's guitar and the multiple effects of Peter Grenader's synths. Ghostly, the shadows dance with a dark side and radiate to the other side under the translucent chords of the six-string. It's like a Robert Fripp submitted to the dense ambient texture of Brian Eno. And this sensation, for those who know the music of this eclectic duet, is the major essence, with a bit of Michael Rother's, who breathes into the some 50 minutes of POV. The music is meditative, although the hues are sometimes violent, with textures ranging from amber to azure while flirting with a darker vision of primary colors. It's quiet, it's nice. But it's almost an ambient album like the others. Almost because of the presence of Steve Roach who changes for a few minutes the dynamics of POV.
Firmament is like a calm river or like a sky where the breezes are rubbed against rolls of marbles. It's a long title of meditative moods with a slight oriental side. Serial guitar chords create a harmonic base with a tonal fragrance that is close to a sitar bed. Layers of synths, rich of their tones of voices as winds without ingredients, intertwine in a sound firmament where the mute impulses add a touch of Dark Ambient which changes constantly of mood for a more seraphic vision. For me, it's a beautiful journey back in time when I attended a Robert Fripp concert around 1977. The Ooda Loop is a peaceful duel between a guitar in his Robert Fripp clothes and synth layers that are rolling on themselves in a structure that reminds me of Eno-Fripp collaborations or works by Michael Rother, his ambient side. Speaking of Michael Rother, Frame 313 also has some attributes, as do the famous 70's Frippertronics from you know who. It's not meant to sleep, you can hardly meditate, as some strata, or rather salvoes, of guitars are violent. Speaking of anesthetic violence, the opening of The Ooda Loop (Reprise) is. This is a short instrumental track where the guitar and the synth go through a multi timbre that is in mode; flirt with the afterlife. The presence of Steve Roach awakens the moods in the title-track. He weaves an ambient tribal rhythm with nervous sequences that roll like clanic percussion. After a short introduction that wakes us up, the hasty pace of Point of View barely surpasses the 3 minutes before more meditative moods return the rhythm for a pensive sound excursion. Chords that sound like percussion, and vice versa, wander in a soundscape as dense as a big thunderstorm miserly of its rain is lazily floating with the opalescent breezes that adorn its majesty. Gradually, percussive sequences and acoustic guitar notes are weaving again this tribal rhythm which adds a lot of color to a first album which deserves a second one.
Sylvain Lupari (August 17th, 2019) **¾***
Available at POV Bandcamp
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