“This is a very caricatural act which is reminiscent of a certain concert from Tangerine Dream at the beginning of the 80's”
1 Analogue Overcoat (23:53)
(Berlin School)
It had been a long time since we had had some new music of AirSculpture to be put between ears. Namely since the striking Trick or Treat?, released in 2009. And, astonishment, there is a certain parallel to be made between both opuses. Recorded during the Hampshire Jam 7, that of the 2007, this HAIRSCULPTURE breathes on the same furious rhythms that we found on Trick or Treat?, In fact, both albums are closely linked to the outstanding Doom Bar, released just at the beginning of 2009. At that time, it was supposed to be the very last Hampshire Jam. And to underline this last lap, AirSculpture, which was in all the HJ events I believe, gave an encore while wearing very colorful wigs. From where this superb pastiche and very caricatural album naming, which is reminiscent of a certain concert from Tangerine Dream at the beginning of the 80's.
The English trio tunes his ambiences with synth lines whose nasal undulations and glaucous ambient harmonies give a rather spectral relief. The ambiospherical pattern of the vintage years is very present with pads of chthonian chorus and alarming veils of Mellotron which float in a relative serenity defiled of black. A sequence gets loose. It makes jump up its echo, like the gallop of a one-legged man skipping in perfect balances. Its rebounds unveil shadows of other sonic beat which amplify a rhythm and its multiple keys skipping in clouds of ether. Electrons of metal lay tsitt-tsitt which dance in these nasal pads and this solitary trot which becomes gallop. And then this gallop becomes disordered. Analogue Overcoat spreads then its rhythmic skeleton with lines of sequences which intertwine a fluid movement to curt and jerky kicks. Minimalist and undulatory, this structure of rhythm surrounds sequences which skip with fury and of which the bites of another line of sequences, more throbbing and graver, release other keys which skip in parallel but in opposite movements. An arsenal of sequences, of which some have organic tones, skips and jumps up in a pattern where the disorder is charm, whereas very muddled harmonies daub a structure which dithers between a psychedelic and cosmic approach. And it is there that the synth solos end the debate. They are as much bewitching as incisive, whereas the rhythm fattens its fury and its swiftness with electronic percussions which propel us in the most delicious psychedelic frenzies of the vintage years. Black choruses add a disturbing depth with these rhythms which fall to pieces finely, transporting this frugal sound feast towards another even more caustic rhythmic phase where synth solos to the hybrid tones and solos of guitar bicker the part of a rhythm which in spite of its minimalist structure preserves the art of its charm with particles, as rhythmic as sonic, which deepen all its dimension. This is great AirSculpture! While waiting for Graveyard Shift…
Sylvain Lupari (September 23rd, 2014) ***½**
Available at AirSculpture Bandcamp