“Twilight is a perfect balance between ambient, tribal and Berlin School”
1 Eclipse 4:32
2 Towards the White Mountains 5:13
3 Enveloping Mists 4:54
4 Summa Cum Laude 6:28
5 Return to the Fire Island 3:18
6 Disturbed Reflections 3:09
7 Passing through Familiar Hills 3:43
8 Autumnal Twilights on Victory Beach 4:25
9 Stargazers 1:21
10 Watery Moon 8:55
(CD 46:09) (V.F.) (Tribal Ambient & Berlin School)
TWILIGHT (Atmospheric Works Vol. 2) is Rudy Adrian's 2nd opus. It's mainly a collection of 10 ambiospheric titles which depicts soundscapes and nature moods among which 2 are real jewels of sequenced beats which have nothing to envy to the masters of the kind. The foggy moods of Rudy Adrian twinned to the soft flute of Nick Prosser create a unique approach of melancholy which increases the sense of this soft and musical poetry which inhabits the sonic bard who is New-Zealand's musical treasure.
Behind thunders, a nice synth with rich and bass sound pads leaves a resounding groove in a night at both mystic and foggy. Eclipse raises itself from our loudspeakers like a mesmerizing monk chant of which the blurred prayers are floating among synth lines with the colors of rainbows. It's an ambient track which knots its loop to the heavy and very cosmic rhythm of Towards the White Mountains. Between Jean-Michel Jarre, Michael Garrison and Edgar Froese, the movement is impetuous with sequences which skip in the fine bangings of percussions and, especially, among superb synth solos with those very ambiospheric movements so dear to cosmic rock. It's very good and it reminds me a lot of Edgar Froese's Stuntman as well as the sequenced movements of Tangerine Dream's Force Majeure era. The 10 tracks of TWILIGHT (Atmospheric Works Vol. 2) are linked in a long musical fresco where these few and very lively rhythmic phases are drown in an intense atmospheric broth such as in Enveloping Mists and its synth lines which undulate lazily beneath the soft pulsations of a discreet bass line which beats weakly in a shower of prismic carillons. Summa Cum Laude moves on with loud reverberations which rumble on a bed of water with crystalline lapping. A powerful line of sequences unfolds its keys which jump in a finely jerky rhythm and team up with very Jarre kind of electronic percussions. The rhythm is circular and spreads its loudness, and its power, in a sonic setting filled by tones of a still unknown fauna. A fauna which little by little becomes interstellar and diverts the breakneck pace of Summa Cum Laude towards a clearly more cosmic phase. With its 6 minutes dipped into a big electronic cosmic rock, Summa Cum Laude is, to me, the cornerstone of TWILIGHT (Atmospheric Works Vol. 2) which will become clearly more ambiospherical with tracks such as Return to the Fire Island, where the very dark flute of Nick Prosser and the very solitary synth lines are floating on a bed of shamanic rattlers. Disturbed Reflections offers a very meditative and melancholic approach with notes of piano which fall in burst. Every one of them gives the impression of echoing into the shade of the precedent one. The whole thing eventually weaves a mesmerizing a kind of musical prismic cannon where every vibration forges the echoes of a raindrop falling on a burning concrete. Passing through Familiar Hills takes back the fluty breaths of Prosser which get mix with some rather contemplative synth lines. This is a track which is very representative of Rudy Adrian's meditative approaches of serenity. And then we fall in the charms of the very ambient Autumnal Twilights on Victory Beach and its singings of birds which gild themselves under the soft and hot rays of a very ethereal synth. This is indeed a very beautiful track. It's soft and poignant with a slight dramatic crescendo which extends until the short Stargazers where the dreams of a flute become a prelude to the very moving Watery Moon and its smooth ambiospheric watercolour which has nothing to envy to Steve Roach's slow introspective dreams.
TWILIGHT (Atmospheric Works Vol. 2) is a good collection of soundscapes and meditative thoughts from Rudy Adrian which is definitively worthtly of its acquisition. It's a nice mixture of genres where the New Zealand synthesist definitively feels at ease either in ambiospherical structures or tribal or yet on Berlin School side as in cosmic rock. To my point of view, it's a perfect balance between the various styles of the synthesist, who has really amazed me with Summa Cum Laude, and the best way of getting in and taming his ambient universe which is so poetic.
Sylvain Lupari (April 3rd, 2007) *****
Available at Rudy Adrian Music
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