“This is a fair album, easy to tame, with music, ambiences and beats which could easely fit to soundtracks of horror movies”
1 A Red Sunset 6:37 2 Burgeoning A 4:08 3 Autumn Leaf 3:22 4 Dans Suav 2:37 5 Past Meets Present 3:15 6 Doina Odyssey 2:39 7 Nefertiti 5:15 8 Sub Zero 5:46 9 Burgeoning B 4:08 10 Sorrow 4:42
(DDL 42:34) (V.F.) (Gloomy Berlin School)
Stories of fear! Ambiances of fear where the songs of ghosts, aliens and ectoplasm weave in and out through different structures of rhythms and sequences that could so easily be included in soundtracks of horror movies. And how about 10 titles that one tames easily while maintaining a cachet of mysticism and romance of an underground society whose secret passages swarm under cemeteries? It's a bit the modus operandi of TEN STORIES-Vol.2. Set on 10 tracks rather short and quite attractive, this 12th album to appear on the site Alba Ecstasy Bandcamp in 2018 is a small collection of titles quite enjoyable and that can be tame without making grimaces, even for the darkest titles.
Like A Red Sunset and its very sibylline choir that hums in a fog deposit. A melody pierces this fog of voices with pinched chords that tinkle in the mystery. More ambiospherical than melodic, A Red Sunset gives its theatrical approach to Burgeoning A which is a real music of anxiety. Its ambiences bring us to the edge of madness with its keyboard scattering its chords like a fall of leaves on a paved road and stained by the rain of a humid industrial region. A voice wanders on this title with strong dark emotions and reminiscent of good Remy. Alba Ecstasy plays with the intonations of this voice, sometimes haunted and sometimes very sensual, while making charming his synth chant which fits well with the austerity of the movement. We remain in this nostalgic vision with Autumn Leaf and its glass chords which struggle to get untie to finally twirl in an autumn drizzle adorned with electronic adornments equal to noisy parasites. Woom arcs and lines of oscillations surrounded by radioactive resonances decorate an introduction and eat up a finale which have nothing to do with the mellow environment which wanders amid the turbulences of this title. Dans Suav follows with this envelope of dragons and dungeons, with a frantic race in a pyramid whose light steps barely scratch the ground. The ambiences are invasive with these synth pads, with a slight hint of orchestrations, which are like the absolute eye terrorizing the runaway and her feet of glass. It's in the mold of Burgeoning A!
Past Meets Present says it all! It's a good mix of vintage and contemporary, especially in tonal, in a 70's writing vision. Doina Odyssey is a nice excuse for ambiances intended for Alba Ecstasy's creative solos. Nefertiti is a pretty nice composition that stands out with its very astral vision. The arpeggios turn with the agility of a ballerina dancing with her mechanical steps with a slight trouble with the mechanism, thus accelerating a dance that always remains graceful. Orchestrations accompany this sequenced ritornello, as well as knocks which resonate in this climate of twilight fright. First ephemeral, these lines of violins are lost in the horizons where they transform into an alien or sibylline ode with voices of ghosts which get back in the form of violins acrylic strings. The circadian pulsations and the Mellotron's chant of Sub Zero give it a gloomy look, while Burgeoning B brings so little nuance to Burgeoning A. Sorrow puts a little more sibylline vision into the universe of TEN STORIES-Vol.2 with a little more structure a bit in Jazz which hosts the agile solos of Alba Ecstasy, as in Doina Odyssey in fact. A light album with great moments! Sylvain Lupari (December 14th, 2018) *****
Available at Alba Ecstasy's Bandcamp