“This is another cosmic fairytale with increasing beats, vibes et melodies trapped on the borders of New Age and Electronica”
1 MILAB (Military Abduction) 4:11 2 Black Ops (Military Secret Space Programs) 5:25 3 LOC (Lunar Operation Command) 4:43 4 Secret Space Program 7:15 5 Blue Indigo Balls of Light 4:52 6 Esoteric 4:58 7 Blue Avians 3:16 8 Genertic Programs 5:03 9 Precognitive Abilities 5:18 10 Raising our Vibrational and Consciousness Level 3:38 11 Orb Beings 4:1
12 Matrix of Spheres 0:54 13 IE (Intuitive Empath) 3:49 14 Sphere Being Alliance 6:02 15 We are One 5:22 16 Outro SSP 1:41 Spotted Peccary | SPM 3002
(CD 70:42) (V.F.)
(Modern EM with a cinematic touch)
Science fiction themes, the possible life on other planets and the secret services such as a likely X-Files are the cradle of an artistic heresy which suits very well the uncountable advantages and the infinite possibilities of EM. The sounds and tones that get out from the synths and sequencers never stop to charm and to amaze. The door is thus wide open to Sverre Knut Johansen, and his last opus SECRET SPACE PROGRAM, who seems resolutely attracted by the subject since I discovered his Earth From Above in 2016. And well beyond this time considering the comments I read from his fans on diverse EM topics, such as EM Portal. Comfortably settled on its 16 titles, this 2nd album of the Norwegian musician on Spotted Peccary is a good musical mosaic where all the styles bound to Electronica hatch out, both between each track and inside of them. So, getting the listener on the alert in this another impressive pallet of sounds and tones with colors that confuse the most avant-gardist painters. And it's nevertheless far from the galaxies that it all begins!
A restful wave installs a soft climate of serenity. A delicate melody spreads an approach of gloominess that the tears of a very Vangelis synth covers of an infinite tenderness. Yes, one could imagine to be in another dimension! Except that the rolling of the waves and the shouts of seagulls bring us back on Earth rather fast. Orchestrations are silky and Sverre Knut Johansen prioritizes cheerfully a very filmic approach at the height of his last album. I wrote higher that each title evolves inside its frame, and MILAB (Military Abduction) offers a very nice perspective at this level when its last minutes are snatched by some oscillatory thin lines which lead the vibes to a kind of a totally unexpected kind of trip-hop in Black Ops (Military Secret Space Programs). The very evasive melody of the beginning is wandering in the background. We are always hung onto its charms when the tide turns, and the trip-hop skips with more vigor between those stroboscopic lines. We leave the lands of Electronica, we will get there strongly later, with the twinkling synth line which sparkles like a blue water below a radiant sun of Australia in LOC (Lunar Operation Command) of which the alloy of a rhythm non-rhythm is skillfully built under this draught of extraterrestrial's melody, kind of Tangerine Dream in Wavelenght, which ceaselessly comes and charms the listening. The soundscape here is simply phenomenal! Except for this song of whale, the orchestrations are, as always, very moving. The astral songs are of an innocence above suspicion and the percussions, as well as effects of percussions, give a lot of depth to this structure of rhythm in constant awakening. These elements decorate the title-track, and the grapeshot of fluty breaths maintain the listening in mode alert! We can hear the guitar of Børge-Petersen Øverlerr raging silently in this luxuriant fauna of tones. Two chords which follow each other with a light gap in the rhythm, Blue Indigo Balls of Light was my first crush on this album. These arpeggios which skip weakly are joined by percussions which are just as soft and of which the resonances click in a veil of semi down-tempo. The guitar whispers a spectral melody and the orchestrations tear the moods with a very incisive staccato. Great!
We have our ears full and we are not even in the middle of SECRET SPACE PROGRAM which also hides small pearls for dream and meditation, like the very nostalgic Esoteric. It sounds very New Age with these meditative piano notes and this seraphic voice doing dual with a slow dying melody. We stay in the spheres of ambient, but intense, music with Blue Avians, while the undulatory whirlwinds and the fiery rhythm of Genertic Programs puts our senses back in action with effects of resonances which lean on good percussion effects and of which the vigor becomes more accentuated as the seconds run away. And always this tearful melody which seems to bloom out from the Martenot Waves! Quite charming… Precognitive Abilities offers an ambient rhythm with hammerings which seem to come from a huge double bass. This 2nd part of the album plunges a bit into a psybient vibe a la Autechre with ambient noises, here it's the percussive effects filled of grapeshot of insects' legs amplified to the most, on a structure which deviates partially towards a more Lounge mood with a vicious bass and a guitar which reserves us some good ambient solos. Ambient in a good structure of noises, Raising our Vibrational and Consciousness Level guides us towards the delicious trip-hop of Orb Beings. Intense in its envelope of tones, the guitar of Øverlerr runs through us here. Orb Beings evolves with a good velocity in a dramatic approach where this delicious melody of Aliens takes all its sense. Quiet and cinematic, the gliding and shrill hoops of Matrix of Spheres lead us to the beautiful serenity of IE (Intuitive Empath) and of its spectral tears. A good moment of a very fascinating contemplation before the intensity reaches its paroxysm with the resounding, the percussions are simply wild and delicious here, Sphere Being Alliance. A little on the same principle of accentuation of tones, of rhythms and of ambiences, We are One proposes a not too wild model of Electronica pushing the short Outro SSP in the same lairs.
Once again, I got seduced, and this more easily, by the music of Sverre Knut Johansen. Playing skillfully on the borders of New Age and Electronica, the composer and the multi-instrumentalist (he plays of everything, set apart the guitar) of Norway puts his signature on a kind of music that is his. The ambient phases and elements, like the multitude of not classifiable rhythms, abound in intensity all over SECRET SPACE PROGRAM, establishing a secret code between SKJ and the one who falls under his charms. And that too is rather easy!
Sylvain Lupari (June 1st, 2017) ***** SynthSequences.com Available at Spotted Peccary Music Bandcamp
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