“There are some good moments here, but I git to admit that only die-hards fans of AE will be pleased by this third volume of Albastru Infinit”
1 Infinite Five 3:56 2 Acid Silence 3:36 3 Infinite Six 6:19 4 Infinity 10:54 5 The Simulator 20:57 6 Infinite Seven 2:46
Alba Ecstasy Music (DDL 48:32)
(Ambient, Berlin & Roumanian Schools)
After an Infinite Five as magnetizing as Navy Blue on Albastru Infinit Vol. II, Acid Silence offers a graceful circular movement where some rather celestial chants of the synth are singing. It's a bit like an electronic nightingale trumpeting nice chants on a jerky but more linear movement from the sequencer. Percussions are slowing down, for a short moment, the axis of this rhythm which continues its initial course without really adding anything more charming to its constitution. Realized only one month after Albastru Infinit Vol. II, ALBASTRU INFINIT Vol III seems to run out of steam and minimizes the artistic reach of the project with structures which stick a little too much to those of the first two volumes. There are good times, but not enough to make of it an album to get absolutely, unless you are a fan of AE.
Infinite Six follows with a beautiful lunar ballad and its arpeggios turning like a musical carousel haloed of sonic lights. This spheroidal movement gets activate a little more, never reaching a point of overflowing, with the arrival of nervous percussive riffs whose impatience is tamed by the contribution of some stoic electronic percussions. The structure is ideal for nice moving solos, what Alba Ecstasy performs with his very Schulzian vision. A good title! Infinity awakens the moods with a stationary rhythm that flirts with the rousing level of the Romanian School. The sequences twinkle and pulsate on the spot by drawing an axis that quietly stretches its undulation, while other sequences flutter in the background. The lamentations of a synth arise before the percussions. If we smell this possible structure of Techno morphic, it is not so since these percussions animate the structure to give it an appearance of cosmic rock. And these solos are cooing with a slight gradation in the tones which go from serious to very sharp. We move on to the next title! After a slow start, The Simulator passes the test of 20 minutes with a good evolutionary structure. Its opening is of ambiospherical elements with some remote synth pads. Two levels of celestial mists fill those first minutes where delicate arpeggios sprout and jump in an icy drizzle. A breeze from a bass pad spreads a dark climate, giving a false impetus which materializes itself more than 40 seconds further with this upward movement, like a train rolling in a plain filled of mountains, which is unique to Berlin School. The color of the sequencer is solemn, and its bass pulsations are rolling faster than this train while oscillating as slowly as possible. Keyboard riffs get in this structure. Like its adjacent shadow, it gravitates with so much speed under a sky lit by arpeggios and synth solos which favors the tones more serious than limpid. If the movement sounds like a too many times deja-entendu, the sequences which join it after the 9-minute bridge are stimulating again our listening pleasure by creating a rhythmic shift with series of kicks that catch our attention instantly. Drums and their deafened blows will come to support this seductive rhythmic mesh always spiced of solos and of arpeggios sparkling of electronic chants. Short but aggressive, Infinite Seven ends this ALBASTRU INFINIT Vol III with undulatory synth waves which are winding up like a boa on a sonic branch supported by pulsations and their reverberations. Let's say that it cleans the eardrums, even if this circular movement offers no rhythm.
Sylvain Lupari (April 23rd, 2019) **½***
Available at Alba Ecstasy's Bandcamp