“Another great surprise with a big diversity of rhythms”
1 Signals 13:26
2 Return to Earth 10:16
3 Time Slip Palindrome 3:20
4 Half Light 7:03
5 The Lost Voice of Reason 7:58
6 Go Green 11:00
(DDL 55:03) (V.F.)
(Progressive EM, Krautrock)
More than 5 years after Songs From The Engine Room Part One, the one-man crew of The Jupiter 8 returns from the intergalactic limbo of 70's psychedelic and electronic music. The one and only OJ returns to shake the temples of EM by creating a dazzling album where EM is besieged by hard, heavy and wild beats. SONGS FROM THE ENGINE ROOM Part II is a powerful and astonishing album full of wild rhythms on good synth and guitar laments. A mix of parallel musical universes that draws its energy and influences through the ups and downs of the 21st century.
Metallic and electronic noises pierce the silence at the opening of Signals. A slender layer waves sinuously under the molding of a solitary bass and electronic sound effects. A heterogeneous intro carried by synth waves with tortuous oscillations unleashes a rhythm supported by sober percussions and a good bass line as heavy as lively. Signals floats above a rhythm that soberly beats the pace under nice strata, sometimes static and sometimes harmonious, of a synth that releases its solos among a panoply of analog and cosmic sound effects twirling on a rhythm that gradually increases its pace to embrace a slight technoïd grip towards the 2nd part. A soft techno well anchored on a good bass and slightly slamming percussions which swirls with intoxication around the multiple and hybrid strata of an always so harmonious and cosmic synth. Heavy and incisive, Return to Earth is the meeting point between rock and electronic. The result eats the wallpaper of the walls. A big electronic rock which embraces the aromas of Death in Vegas on Scorpio Rising. The rhythm is heavy and well-paced with good percussions that feel so real, good riffs from a guitar that doesn't give away any solo and a heavy bass that would shake a crazy structure à la Faith No More. These rock instruments shape a heavy and hellish rhythm, surrounded by subtle layers of a mellotron that drops its heavenly humming in this duality of customs and rhythms on a synth with harmonies that catch from the start. Another hot track! Melancholic and lonely, Time Slip Palindrome is a blues that makes its guitar sing over a funky galactic structure, bouncing of its jerky rhythm.
Half Light is a strange metallic ode that waddles over a good bass line and percussions that trace a light groovy rhythm. A bass sways its chords in an atonal phase that is surrounded by a fusion of guitar/synth strata ululating in a Robert Fripp universe. An inert structure but imbued of a cosmic life where the strata meander and mate in a sinuous movement of cosmic schizophrenia. The Lost Voice of Reason is sculpted in the same mold as Half Light, except that the rhythm is progressive, albeit light on a mesh of strata and layers of guitars/synth. A guitar which is more omnipresent, and a bit inspired by the Manuel Göttsching style. Go Green is the masterpiece of SONGS FROM THE ENGINE ROOM Part II. An intro dipping in the 50's influences stagnates in a corrosive immobility. Then heavy guitar riffs wander and echo in loops while percussions and a heavy bass draw a loud jerky rhythm. The echoes of those riffs creates a slow rhythm where the bass gallops nervously on a structure amplified by jerky movements of the guitar riffs. The rhythmic structure becomes crazy and uncontrollable. Keyboard chords and guitar strata overhang this frenetic, heavy, metallic structure that goes astray in a brief moment of tranquility before bouncing back, fed by furious guitar solos. A superb frenetic track, but still quite harmonious, which confuses and fascinates like everything that gravitates inside SONGS FROM THE ENGINE ROOM Part II.
I really enjoyed this superb album that constantly surprises us with the diversity of its rhythms, sometimes wild and frenzied, sometimes abstract and ambient, on creative musical approaches that are catchy and bewitching like a big synth-pop psychedelic album.
Sylvain Lupari (December 6th, 2010) *****
Available at Jupiter 8 Bandcamp
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