“Solid e-rock, with a zest of IDM, flavoured of a futuristic vision, Quantum Earth has a lot to seduce those who want to rock on solid cosmic grounds”
1 Quantum Earth 6:32
2 The Universe Builders 7:26
3 Destination Terra 7:10
4 Solar Sails 6:34
5 Celestial Bodies 5:14
6 The Ice Canyons of Miranda 6:00
7 Fireflies in the Starlight 4:48
8 Infinite Improbabilities 11:52
(DDL 55:38) (V.F.)
(Psybient and Psybeat E-rock)
Sound waves follow the bend of the alarm sirens' howlings. The howls are silent in a din from where a heavy structure of jerky rhythm is born. With a plethora of pulses and bass sequences, electronic riffs and percussions with Bongos skins that thunder for a catchy rhythm, the title-track sets the tone for another electronic rock album with a futuristic dimension from this collective project (Celestial View, The Roboter, Johan Tronestam, Kuutana and Synthesist) that is Sequential Dreams. Quantum Earth takes us on a solid cosmic rock à la Jean-Michel Jarre with these manual percussions which weave a light futuristic tribal approach. Without surprises, the international quintet offers an album where rhythms are violent in moods sometimes subdued with moderation and where harmonies always hang on the hair of our ears. Hard-hitting, with more moderate short passages, Quantum Earth forces our eardrums with a heavy and lively electronic approach which is sculpted on a mesh of sequences and percussions to which are added nice ethereal layers, bursting with fine artificial voices, which counterbalance the ferocity of the rhythm. For lovers of Sequential Dreams, we are on familiar ground. I would even say that this QUANTUM EARTH is a little more ferocious with a technoïd side which is very close to a heavy IDM. The rhythms cross tribal aromas, especially because of the bongos, in structures that mix mid-beat and down-tempo. But it's heavy. It's big e-rock very influenced by the periods of electronic rhythms of Jean-Michel Jarre and Tangerine Dream. As for those who like an EM martyred by percussions and surging sequences, far from the sequenced wanderings of the Berlin School, except for the particularly good Infinite Improbabilities, and closer to a type of psybeat, this Sequential Dream album should appear in your upcoming discovery log.
The Universe Builders also begins with a long whoosh and a lot of short waashh. The intro is fascinating with a double speed sound dialect which will call back the attempts of communication in Close Encounter. Soon, the rhythm begins to sparkle and gesticulate with deep sequences before falling in a kind of heavy hip-hop with a pace, clubbed by robust percussions and bangings of hands, which skips in a puddle of pulsations, gurgling and electronic winds. Less heavy and closer to synth-pop, Destination Terra crackles on a structure of electronic percussions and sequences with an unbridled flow, while the harmonious envelope crosses as much a cosmic, at both ambient and ethereal, as a synth-pop. Just like Celestial Bodies moreover, but which leans more towards a strong IDM. Solar Sails is the relaxation moment on this album. Its intro is seraphic and the rhythm which holds its hand is silky slow and soaked of a dense sound fauna which brings a bit of distortion. The Ice Canyons of Miranda offers a structure of sequences where a line of jumping keys gallops in the harmonies of another more fragile line. The synths bathe the atmospheres of a heavenly approach which is very near the fragrances of Tangerine Dream. In fact, the rhythm moves with good percussions and with beautiful harmonies which make relive the vibe of the Canyon Dreams. It's beautiful synth-pop, as much delicate and cheerful as Destination Terra. Fireflies in the Starlight brings the clock to rhythm with a heavy mid-tempo which oscillates on good sequences, as lively as those bongo drum percussions, which thunder and with solid riffs of an e-guitar which remind the Miramar years ambiences, always from TD. And like on every track of the album, the music dives into a more dreamy, a more ethereal passage before taking back its shape with subtle modifications in its structure. The introduction of Infinite Improbabilities makes us revisits the dreamy moods of Flashpoint with a line of bass sequences of which the oscillations crawl under the charms of a synth with chants flavored by the flutes of desert. A carpet of prisms covers this sneaky rhythm whereas the singings take on a dress of spectres. The ambiences are on the edge of the works from the psychotronic era with organic pulsations and threatening synth pads which depict the evolutionary rhythms of the Dream, periods Wavelenght and Near Dark. Moreover, it's about this album that I'm thinking when the percussions approach the moods with strong disordered strikes, turning upside down a passive rhythm which gesticulates like a poisoned skeleton before becoming as steady as the good passages of Near Dark. By far, the most fascinating track on QUANTUM EARTH which at the end is a solid album of electronic rock to the trends always so futuristic.
Sylvain Lupari (October 17th, 2014) ***½**
Available at Borders Edge Music
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