37254 - BySenses - MonoCHROOM
Didier Dewachtere once told me when he has just released 5 Jours de Liberté that from now on the next BySenses albums will be offered as downloads only because of the manufactured CD low level of sales. So what was my surprise when I received a small CD package containing a white artwork with a big black circle in the middle! To my amazement, I was holding Didier's latest effort, entitled MonoCHROOM, between my fingers. The fact that people only see one color has always fascinated the artist from Ghent since his childhood. And it was only recently that a friend told him about this handicap, monochromacy. This album is dedicated to them with a musical vision that shines with all the colors of electronic music (EM), and even more. MonoCHROOM, it's two long tracks of 30 minutes straight where BySenses offers structures in full movement. From psybient to techno, passing by EDM and Krautrock, the Belgian musician flirts with audacity to finally r e ach these pinnacles of auditory happiness which for some exceed the most beautiful of orgasms. This is the path of Monos!
But you have to be ready! If not, the first second of Monos makes us jump with a knocking that stretches into a wave with pulsating reverberations. In fact, it's a series of rubbery knocks that follow and each one stretches into guttural drones that make drool these radioactive tones in an opening where the din never stops pulsing. There's a strobe effect that fans those reverberating waves as a rake seems to scrape the surface to get all the radioactive juice out. It's not exactly restful for the ears trying to gauge what tonal color BySenses is trying to get out of this noise anthill. We have to reach the 3rd minute to finally feel an ambient phase floating above industrial echo effects with synth layers floating while clasping between howling winds. One drifts thus until the 7th minute where we await those titanic noises of the aliens invading our planet i n The War of the Worlds series. Each call of the aliens is followed by a momentary quietness that makes this end of the world dialogue even more thunderous. Our ears then encounter a pulsating rhythm, after the 13th minute, surrounded by glitch effects and waves of synth whose eroded tones turn into quavering chords. These chords flit over a keyboard scale played by nervous fingers, creating a confused harmony with a tremolo that flirts quite well with ambiences always carried towards an xth dimension. There is a distressing side that stands out and turns into a more musical phase with a prismatic chorus that rises from it. This tonal union seems unreal, like the colors of a nightmare. And yet, Monos draws us more and more into this pulsating phase that is surrounded by good percussive elements while the spectral melody takes on an orchestral voice. And suddenly, the synth starts to make swirling its air, inviting our senses to surrender to the Holy Grail of Monos which ends in an e lectronic dance anthem of unhoped-for bewitchment. It is when the delirium brings us to perfection that we recognize a great artist. Didier Dewachtere makes the proof on Monos.
What if I told you that CHROOM is even more beautiful? Its introduction is pulsating with a clear leaning towards DJ music. Here too, sonic elements flicker at the same height as the rattling in a dance anthem made for the masses. More music, more rhythm and less noise, the track evolves with a palette of heterogeneous tones borrowed from the roots of early synthesizer tonal experimentations. Between these phases, beautiful layers of voices, like trumpet tunes, offer us a more celestial side than in Monos, even if the sound vocabulary flirts a little with its. Between the lamentations of the violin strings, we hear an anvil throwing its sonorous ink on an asphalt and its industrial ghosts which regurgitate suffering and ardour of the workers. But let there be no mistake. This unusual texture sets the tabl e for Peter Moorkens, guitarist in the Onsturicheit project, to untie his fingers and let us hear his psychedelic harmonies rolled in loops. Whew! Amazed and charmed! The rhythm is of a fragile violence with percussions drumming between the different tones of the portable anvil. And all the time, there's this knife that spreads wooaasshh over and over. This incredible segment takes our ears to the 15th minute. A pulsating bass line awaits us with its slow rhythmic unfolding between synth vapors intoxicated with an organic liquid mass, we hear microbes talking, or possibly a toxic liquid liquefying us on a psychedelic passage with scents of Ash Ra Tempel behind each pulse. These winds become orchestrations that turn into mutant voices when BySenses decides to take us into an organic Disco where Moorkens takes himself for the incarnation of Manuel Göttsching. Amazing, splendid and stunning!
What I have just described to you has literally passed through my ears in the last 60 minut es. And 2 albums of BySenses in the space of a little more than 2 months! Our ears have something to be pampered because like 5 Jours de Liberté, MonoCHROOM is a stroke of genius. A titanic work which takes us by surprise and which little by little becomes unmovable from our CD player. The hazardous ears will be delighted and the most frightened will be conquered. Bold and brilliant, it is a whole work that Didier Dewachtere proposes here! Available in manufactured CD and in download.
Sylvain Lupari (January 24th, 2022) |
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86288 - Spyra - My little Garden of Sounds 2022
Perhaps the most beautiful tribute to Klaus Schulze comes from the left field. From the nimble hands and the creativity of Wolfram der Spyra. In a completely unexpected sequel to what many fans of the German synthesizer-musician consider his best work, MY LITTLE GARDEN OF SOUNDS 2022 literally immerses the listener in the intricate structures of a Berlin School refreshed from a new fountain of youth. Composed in the context of an exhibition of interactive sound sculptures, these two works by Spyra are intimately linked even though they are 25 years apart. Unlike My Little Garden of Sounds1997, the sound sculptor from Eschwege uses here analog synthesizers and sequencers that give richness and warmth to rhythms that progress from atmospheric to violent spasmodic jolts in textures where his typical Techno confronts the ascending processions of the Berlin School. But the real strength of this album lies in the magnificent solos that Spyra unfol d s with the same tenderness as a gardener caressing his garden of his eyes, especially in Polyphonic Plants that keeps spinning in my head, on structures that recall the influences of Klaus Schulze, from Body Love to Miditerranean Pads.
This new release also makes a link with Future of the Past, released likewise in 1997, with the follow-ups of Non Disperdere nell'Ambiente with a third part that starts slowly. It is the keyboard, very dominant in this album, that structures the ascending march of its luminous arpeggios. The movement is like hesitating with additional lines that follow in the shadow of an ambient rhythm. A rhythm that staggers under the weight of this swarm of sequenced arpeggios, sculpting a wavering rhythmic approach that serves as a basis for majestic synth solos that contort over what becomes a Berlin School with irresistible yesteryear flavors. Tsiitts-tsiitts picked up here and there adorn this ascent towards our memories while the keyboard continues its mul tiplication of arpeggios whose radiations thicken a musical texture at the same time aggressive and passionate. Momentarily abandoned to these tsiitts-tsiitts and the invasion of arpeggios, the solos return to embellish the 2nd part of Non Disperdere nell'Ambiente Pt.III, recalling the importance of Klaus Schulze in the evolution of Spyra. Crumbling their harmonies for synthesized phonetics, they slide this first track of MY LITTLE GARDEN OF SOUNDS 2022 towards the dull and fluttering sequences that enliven the opening of Flowers Under the Snow. All the tracks on this seductive new opus from the German musician follow more or less the same ascending sequenced rhythmic pattern unique to the Berliner model of the 70's. The flute replaces the synth solos on this rhythm that rises and falls with a dominant rhythmic inflection that simulates a gradual march to the stars. The sequencer movement has that unsettling shadow of Body Love structures with a bright synth layer that serves as a s unscreen. Spyra plays beautifully with the emotional nuances that surround the secret life of the inhabitants of his garden of sounds, giving this track a shadowy and mysterious feel, dominated by the harmonious texture of the synth solos while leaving room for the mellotron and its beautiful fluty chants. A return in the time which metamorphoses in a Techno typical to Spyra who shears it of solos as intense and sharpened as the rhythmic rise. The movement slightly decreases and let floating arpeggios that are found in the introductory corridor of Non Disperdere nell'Ambiente Pt.IV. This track is based on a series of loops that sway, flutter and leapfrogging with organic shadows. Some synth chirps and stardust evaporate under a sky shaded by a permanently suspended synth layer that moves with a fascinating musicality, reminiscent of a distant vampiric melody. The intensity rises in this atmospheric track that reaches its threshold of tranquility around the 4th minute. A menacing sh a dow filled of voices and of oral drones gradually replenishes the space, delivering the hungry loops and their pent-up shadows in a finale of a rare atmospheric intensity.
The last shady breaths are spreading in the opening of The Storm of the Garden Gnomes, a track were the samplers and its parade of keyboard chords walking awkwardly in a convulsive beginning. The structure soon changes to a spiral of chaotic Cha-Cha-Cha steps which is wrapped of an iridescent synth pad. The structure becomes more and more jerky as other sequences, contracted arpeggios in a hungry belly tone and percussions are grafted to this spasmodic robotic dance that actually combines two easily identifiable rhythmic patterns. And it is always in a chaotic confusion that the rhythm crumbles its last beats into a series of oscillating loops. The tonal structure of the album is strongly inspired by the 2002 exhibition and is most apparent in 49 Words for Paradise which seizes on the fly the remnants of The S torm of the Garden Gnomes rhythm to make sparkling a line of arpeggios that twirl briskly in a circular rhythmic pattern. Other arpeggios with a melodic vision encircle this fluid yet jerky movement in a nice allegorical ballet with a pulsating bass line and boom-boom percussions. The rhythm is very driving and more spasmodic in a technoïd Berliner phase which is covered by a texture of vocal effects that will fill its sonic sky with a multitude of lyrics thrown randomly on a rhythmic backbone that has this faculty to regenerate itself without having consumed a beginning of end, if only for a more atmospheric finale where some arpeggios with a rhythmic memory still remain. The very short The Secret Door detaches itself from all that swirls in the universe of MY LITTLE GARDEN OF SOUNDS 2022 in order to offer a superb ballad for a solitary soul. To make a rock cry hidden in this water garden! The longest track on this album, Polyphonic Plants is also its foundation stone. Written wit h his wife Roksana Vikaluk, its rhythm is a splendid Berlin School well built on a structure filled with jolts created by the impact of the percussions and the bass sequences. Its strength lies in the beautiful solos that contort and weep like Martenot waves. These solos are performed by Roksana. She demonstrates her knowledge of jazz with solos that fly and hover like spectres on this structure which is violent from the inside until its 10th minute. And its imprint, never so violent, still remains for the next 3 minutes where these solos are weeping like a tortured guitar texture.
Arguably the finest and purest album of its kind to follow in the footsteps of the analog years, MY LITTLE GARDEN OF SOUNDS 2022 is a pure masterpiece of contemporary electronic music (EM) that has no desire to deny its grandiose past. But you must be patient, because this little jewel of sound sculptures to be sparkled in the open air will be available this summer in the context of Sound Lounger and V olksklangliege exhibitions that will be held in the town of Kassel from July 1st. More information are available on Spyra website. Afterwards, the manufactured CD will be sold through the known networks, Groove nl and others, before finally ending up at Apple and co months further. One of the most beautiful albums I've ever heard!
Sylvain Lupari (June 24th, 2022) |
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*new entry / track listing and cover added *
Alio Die & others - CHAPTERS OF THE ECLIPSE (cd) 60164
$ 19.99 / UKP 13.99 / EURO 15.90
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$ 19.99 / UKP 13.99 / EURO 15.90
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*review added *
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$ 17.25 / UKP 12.25 / EURO 13.75
Details/ordering: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artnum=gr-328
*new entry / track listing and cover added *
BySenses - MONOCHROOM (cd) 37254
2022. For those who didn't knew: There is more than one colour in life, just openthe book..
Digipak
$ 18.75 / UKP 13.25 / EURO 14.90
Details/ordering: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artnum=37254
*review added *
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2022. Live and Studio mixed on this CD by Jon!!.
$ 18.49 / UKP 12.99 / EURO 14.75
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*new entry / track listing and cover added *
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$ 17.49 / UKP 12.25 / EURO 13.90
Details/ordering: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artnum=11168
*review added *
Ellis, Paul - PANORAMAS CD-III (cd) gr-315
2022. Part 3 by Paul Ellis. These stunning pieces of music will flow into your life and enhance it with it's subtle atmosphere. All 3 releases will be limited to only 200 copy's!!.
Limited edition of 200.
$ 17.25 / UKP 12.25 / EURO 13.75
Details/ordering: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artnum=gr-315
*new entry / track listing and cover added *
Fox, Robert - TIMELESS 2 (cd) 28988
2022. 'best of' 1991-2005.
$ 17.49 / UKP 12.25 / EURO 13.90
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*(back) in stock *
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$ 32.49 / UKP 22.75 / EURO 25.90
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$ 34.49 / UKP 24.25 / EURO 27.50
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NODE lIVE on Blueray!.
$ 35.25 / UKP 24.75 / EURO 28
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$ 18.75 / UKP 13.25 / EURO 14.90
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Roach, Steve & others - NAUTICAL TWILIGHT (cd) 32673
2022.
$ 19.99 / UKP 13.99 / EURO 15.90
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$ 18.75 / UKP 13.25 / EURO 14.90
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*review added *
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$ 27.49 / UKP 19.25 / EURO 21.99
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*review added *
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$ 17.25 / UKP 12.25 / EURO 13.75
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Spyra - MY LITTLE GARDEN OF SOUNDS 2022 (cd) 86288
2022. Space music.
$ 18.75 / UKP 13.25 / EURO 14.90
Details/soundclip/ordering: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artnum=86288
*new entry / track listing and cover added *
Zyl, Chuck van - WINTER WIND (lp + cd) 38697
2022. limited edition of 285 LPs on translucent black vinyl with white & silver splatter, sold together with a conventional silver CD of the album.
Limited edition of 200.
$ 32.49 / UKP 22.75 / EURO 25.90
Details/soundclip/ordering: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artnum=38697 |
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