“If the future of EM lies in New Age, then hopefully it will lie in musician such as here”
1 Love's Purest Light 8:05
2 Angels in the Sunlight 22:18
3 Eternal Reincarnation 36:45
(CD/DDL 67:08) (V.F.)
(New Age)
New Age? Humph...! It took David Wright for me to accept to soak my ears in this musical style that I consider insipid and boring. Because I've already given it a try, believe me! Here in America in the 70's, we had a taste of the psychedelic-electronic movement with Tangerine Dream. We also heard Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Kraftwerk on radio. But we had to have a good import store to find albums from Klaus Schulze, Ashra and other. But with Virgin, the Dream and Mike Oldfield had the forefront of EM or instrumental music. Then came the New Age. And the radio waves were infested by it. Artists, including TD, from catalogs such as Narada, Private Music, Windham Hill, Miramar and others were taking the lead and turning EM into Easy Listening Music by creating music with soft rhythms and heavenly tones. We were far from pure electronic music. Then came the Internet... This long preamble brings us to the new vocation of the label AD Music which will produce a new series of relaxation music. This new orientation answers a real need and an increased demand of a very active public which is dying to hear New Age, hence the group Trinity (not to be confused with the Trinity which gathered Ian Boddy and Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock with David Wright). Nope, this Trinity is made of David Wright, Neil Fellowes and Nigel Turner-Heffer; 3 musicians with a vast and solid experience in progressive and electronic music with the band Code Indigo and in solo who accepted the challenge to create progressive New Age. MUSIC FOR ANGELS is Trinity's first…and last album. Am I going to do New Age reviews? No! But I think it's only fair that David Wright's fans be aware of what's going on with the UK label and the career of its famous synthesist. On another note, and especially to comfort his fans, DW told me that his next album will be very electronic and that this project is to be dissociated from his other musical activities.
A delicate waterfall awakens the rhythm of an acoustic guitar riff, which in turn brings a gentle synth out of its musical hibernation. With angelic synth blasts and fine orchestral arrangements, the airy rhythm of Love's Purest Light shines with sparkling arpeggios to provide a tender rhythmic pattern imbued of dreamy sweetness. The rhythm is light with the harmonious riffs of the acoustic guitar, while the melody is provided by a fluty synth with delicate modulations and light Kitaro-style tremolos in the tones. Celestial choirs, glittering arpeggios, poignant mellotron outbursts and superb orchestrations furnish this long half-cosmic, half-New Age ballad that unfolds with variations in its structure while always remaining as fluid as melodious. It's a beautiful track, let's be honest, which does its effect, and which even pleases my girlfriend, Lise. Delicate notes of a chimeric harp open the first measures of Angels in the Sunlight. The rhythm is non-existent and the notes float in a light static swirl where everything turns in circle, like the reflections of a hypnotic light. A bass line drops its notes and the chords of an electric guitar awaken as the music progresses towards a kind of galactic blues. A very long track full of restraint and mainly focused on acoustic instruments, Angels in the Sunlight reminds me a bit of Osamu Kitajima's album The Source. This long melodic structure runs through the same rhythmic lines, adding here and there all the heart-catching ingredients for an audience that doesn't want to hear heavy sequences, nor long solos with excessive laments. This is where the experience of the 3 musician-veterans Wright, Fellowes and Turner-Heffer comes into play; they manage to create a long melody that constantly turns on a rhythmic structure adorned of subtle variations. The second half offers a more electronic approach with synth whistling fine cosmic solos, merging Blues with New Age through light jazz with some fluty synth solos through a delicate cosmic approach.
Why snubbing Eternal Reincarnation? The first portion lets heard this delicate acoustic guitar that reflects its notes in a cosmos where angels paint the walls with stars and where cosmic breaths feed our imagination. A beautiful synthesized voice emerges. It blows and releases suave laments which are rocked in a starry cosmos. Here is a superb introduction shaped in the breasts of tenderness and melancholy with an angelic voice that blows our sighs in a delicate melodious approach. Nostalgic, the acoustic guitar is to make dream the rebellious. Angelic, the voice reminds that of the absent mothers of our children's beds. She sings and whispers our sweet innocent reveries, made of angel dust and stars, which are recovered by a tender and romantic acoustic guitar. I would have liked this portion longer, but Eternal Reincarnation emerges from its enchanting bed midway through with a gentle festive approach, initiated by percussions that carve out a delicate rhythm sprinkled with light fluty breaths. A livelier rhythm picks up on the introductory charms, creating a deft mesh where the sweetness and beauties of Morpheus dance gently over a light, slightly groovy blues beat.
If the future of EM artisans lies in the New Age, then hopefully it will lie in musician-composers as talented than in Trinity. And even if I found Angels in the Sunlight to be a bit of a turn-off, I can't deny the beauty and depth of Eternal Reincarnation. A superb relaxation track that nestles in my iPod and accompanies my bedside music, for it is truly music for angels. No, I'm still not in favor of New Age and if I'm confused by the commercial approach of AD Music, when it's beautiful it's beautiful. And MUSIC FOR ANGELS is a nice album that shows that New Age can be done in good conditions of creativity.
Sylvain Lupari (September 9th, 2011) *****
Available at AD Music
Komentarze