“The sounds of Alluste are so much warmth than we easily let ourselves lull by his music... like here”
1 The Little Bridge 11:40
2 Beyond the Infinity 9:19
3 Purpoise Dreams 5:38
4 Broken Multisphere 7:45
5 The Dream will Never End 5:24
6 The Battle of Mankind 20:46
(DDL 60:33) (V.F.)
(New Berlin School)
It's with sequences leaping like baby goats wanting to play the dominant male that The Little Bridge begins. The movement is serene, even that limpid percussive effects tumbling down by cascades and another rhythm line interspersed in several harmonic segments remind us that Alluste has become a master in the manipulation of the sequencer. Not complicated for two cents, The Little Bridge evolves with this tone of Tangerine Dream of the Johannes Schmoelling years. Especially with a delicate morphic melody whistled by a synth in the hues of flute. Constantly keeping the same course, the title combines its rhythm structure with sober percussions while the sequencer randomly makes dribbling its jumping keys. The Little Bridge sets the tone for the Italian musician's second album in 2020. Structured on 6 tracks that could have survived in a single textural mosaic, BEYOND THE INFINITY is another very good album where my friend Piero continually surpasses himself on the sequencer. Here, the rhythms are structured with parallel movements and others crisscrossed ones in rhythmic structures constantly attacked by hordes of jumping keys that tirelessly attract our listening. The melodies are woven by romantic and daydreaming keyboards, while the art of developing synth solos has become automatic with Alluste. And if I'm not mistaken, we have to go back to 2008 with the Constellation album to hear one of his titles bordering the 20 minutes length with Kaldyuis. So, an album in two tones and in two shades which presents a totally exquisite first part and this long title, The Battle of Mankind, which demands love and a spirit of discovering.
The opening of Beyond the Infinity is inspired by the finale of The Little Bridge with a lush wooshh-filled mistbank. A dreamy piano imposes its presence by its sweet notes which flutter in a darker cosmic setting. The rhythm structure that follows offers a vision of Berlin School very close to the opening title as the synth adorns this ascending movement with prismatic solos. It's soft in the shape and Alluste adds percussive effects to this structure which silently adjusts a form of intensity that explains its explosion around the 7 minutes. A very good track that my Italian friend makes even more attractive when he opens the door of the sequencer to launch a handful of admirably well dribbled jumping keys. Purpoise Dreams remains in the same texture but with more tonal ornaments, especially the synth solos, which do not harm from its taming. A title that is very Chris Franke! Ditto for Broken Multisphere, which is a nice reflection starting with a bouquet of spectral haze and riffs that flourish with a more musical vision. The keyboard weaves a ticking genre approach while the riffs always flourish a little more in a context where the rhythm makes its keys frolic and that arpeggios imitate in a latent evolution of ambient rhythm which will remain more hypnotic than explosive. The Dream will Never End is a nice electronic ballad with a keyboard that makes us daydream. And it's once the bank of mist has softened that these shimmering arpeggios strike gently on our eardrums. Soft and ghostly, because of this obscure setting, the melody approaches the skipping movement of the sequencer. A whistle awakens the decor and the rhythm which has become the source of the melody in a structure constantly seeking its point of explosion.
It's a soft hum that announces the lifting of The Battle of Mankind. Sibylline lines and waves draw graffiti on the wall of ambiences that have become a little more scary. It's like to be in an underground labyrinth wandering through corridors exhilarating the vestiges of horrors of the past. Groans of ghosts or poltergeists come and go through the portals of time. The sequencer got into the habit of exorcising these ambiences with bits of melodic rhythms that came and went with the same assiduity as the wandering specters. He joins together these bits of melodies to shape a phantom structure that captures and maintains the level of our interest. It's around 9 minutes that this rhythm explodes in a heaviness to empty all fictitious traces or not of The Battle of Mankind. Heavy, the structure nevertheless accelerates its power, like these chimerical trains of the Berlin School style. Behind, the mist and its resources bewitch with distant voices and timid as evasive fluty airs. The title changes skin for a 3rd time a little before the 13th minute, becoming more fluid and lively, before flexing for a 4th time to borrow a more ghostly and more evasive vision. This last change brings us nowhere, a bit like if Alluste was looking for himself in these labyrinths of time that he will also have to learn to master. And considering all the progress made since Constellation, it's only a matter of time for the Italian musician to master with art and grace all the finesse of progressive Berlin School-style EM.
In the meantime, we listen to the first 40 minutes of BEYOND THE INFINITY again because there are little jewels of melodies, pearls in the arpeggios and quite an art in the sequencer!
Sylvain Lupari (01/20/21) *****
Available at Alluste Bandcamp