“While we expect a floating ode with morphic shadows, Authentics is busting us in face with its inextricable rhythmic forms”
1 Part I 11:56 2 Part II 8:08 3 Part III 27:32 4 Part IV 6:42 5 Part V 10:20 6 Part VI 8:53 SynGate/Luna | CD-r ANHJ 01
(CD-r 73:31) (V.F.) (Experimental Berlin School)
A sound journey at the end of the fathomless and an incursion in the spheres of the most abstract of experimental rhythms, AUTHENTICS is all but banal. Nesting in the breast of the new ambiospherical and experimental entity of the German label SynGate/Luna, this first collaboration between Wolfgang Barkowski (Alien Nature) and Hajo Liese (he has already collaborated on the project El-Ka with Till Kooper) offers 6 movements of sequences which explode of anfractuous rhythms in atmospheres divided in this beauty lost of the analog years of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. Rhythms for a label which targets ambient works! That's exactly the very great beauty of this album; the unexpected, the unpredictable.
Movement of a mass of iridescent sound particles moving in the occult roaring winds from shaman gongs where the voices complain in abandon, Part I tickles our ears with a flute lost in some caustic resonances and nomadic drumbeats. A circle of ringing chords binds itself to these pulsations which subtly change the measure of the pace by accelerating it in the trail of the jingles from mnemonic cymbals. Swirling in hollow and melodious winds, these chords fascinate as much as they shape a melody carrying an earworm which changes tone while following the evolution of a rhythm become more insistent even if always slightly chaotic. A rhythm which little by little faints to keeps silent in the intense layers of a synth to the aromas of a black organ which spits its suspicious mists. The rests of a dark melody follow the nuanced voices and the furtive rhythm of Part II which borrows the same romance between the rhythm and the glaucous atmospheres, but with a more Teutonic approach. This rhythm skips on a bass line and of its organic implosions and couples with the elytrons of cymbals to follow a more ferocious tangent with the arrival of sequences which hop in a harmonious disorder, drawing a seductive and quiet minimalist approach which is unique to the movements of Berlin School. And Part II gets dismember little by little of its harmonies and of its resounding rhythm to finish like a skeleton boned in the black ambiences of Part III where only pulsatory chords roam in some cold winds. These chords follow a fuzzy rhythmic pattern, which sounds like the previous part, and are grafted into a slow ambiospherical ascent where muffled pulsations and resounding chords dance in a nothingness flavored by vapors of iodine, by mortuary synth layers and gaseous pulsations. And little by little, Part III flows into the silence of the disrupted atoms where reign the big winds of space. Even in the peace of mind of the interstellar cold, our senses are constantly under the spell of a cerebral movement of hypnosis which always follows its quest of the auditive magnetism. Quietly the life takes back a shape on Part III with these sequences which skip in a puddle of nitrogen, paving the way to a mislaid rhythm which returns to its roots accompanied by a strange organic fauna and synth layers as nasal as ghostly. And that's the way goes AUTHENTICS. Part IV stages this procession of sequences which forge evolutionary rhythms of which the zigzagged race evolves in an always minimalist pattern where the crystalline mists and the fluty breaths make counterweight to these explosions of thunders which shake a rhythm become more dislocated. Part V evolves in the same concept but with a perfume very pronounced for the influences of the era Baumann from the Dream, whereas Part VI closes with a more aggressive rhythmic phase. Wrapped by beautiful layers of a synth which reminds the experimental sound forms of Klaus Schulze's Farfisa, the rhythm is furiously freed by a sequencer which makes its keys bounce on-the-spot. Other sequences add to the schizophrenic panorama of a rhythm to the frenzied permutations among which the overlapping and the intertwining are high rhythmic acrobatics which parades in our ears with the heaviness of its movements that layers in tones of old organ are mastering in their unreal habitat environments.
AUTHENTICS is a nice surprise. While we expect a floating ode with morphic shadows, the music is busting out with its inextricable rhythmic forms. Rhythms with ceaseless evolutions with form as much pluralistic as the fathomless possibilities of sequencers and of their keys smiths of the unlikeliest. From Teutonic minimalism to a mosaic of multi layered rhythms, AUTHENTICS lays down its wealth in a surrealist atmosphere where an organicosmic fauna and its synth layers with analog tones invade a bewitchment which grows in every new orientation of the rhythms and in every breath of synth to the fragrances of the analog years. A very beautiful album and a pleasant surprise.
Sylvain Lupari (May 23rd, 2013) ***½**
Available at SynGate Bandcamp