ALLUSTE: The Silence of Time (2016)

“This is a strong album where the sequencing patterns tame silence, even with an array of soft beats and of their constant evolutions”

1 Fallen Angel from Heaven 11:45 2 Time of Silence 9:22 3 The Silence of Time 11:08 4 Into Infinity 10:01 5 SpaceTime Energy 7:02 6 From Turin to Bruxelles (Extended) 7:12 7 The Indifference of Time 8:15 Alluste Music

(DDL 64:48) (V.F.) (Berlin School)

Alluste is part of this artists' generation who grew up with the new technologies of music softwares. Little by little, he climbed up the ladder of respectability by producing a series of albums where revolved a lot of catchy titles which found their way to our eardrums. And like most of these artists, he became a machine to produce music, laying on virtual keyboards his thoughts, dreams and visions. THE SILENCE OF TIME crowns a very prolific year where Piero Monachello presented not less than 3 albums to his fans. An album more than interesting that confirms his place in the circle of the big names of EM.

A line of bass sequences skips delicately. Galloping silently on the sonic plains, it scatters sizzling and crackling shadows which find echoes in the wave-like movement of Fallen Angel from Heaven. Although the main structure spreads a minimalist approach, a series of lines which escape from it form some small rhythmic strands of which the random dances always maintain the rhythm in a vegetative state. Feeling more at ease with the synths, Alluste wraps his structure of very good solos while the movement of sequences frees other keys which skip with more velocity, like bees in search of nectar. With a music which depicts marvellously the sense of its title, Fallen Angel from Heaven sets the tone to a fascinating album. Even with structures of sequences in perpetual movements or constantly evolving, the album proposes a rather mild EM. So much that one would say that the sequences skip and cavort in a sort of absorbent cotton! Like in Time of Silence where Alluste reties with his former spheroidal structures a la Software. The synth spreads its effects of mists which are humming among the multitude of undisciplined jingles and of which the entwinings are forging a ball of rhythm which rolls on itself. The title-track moves on with sequences perfumed of fluty tones and of which the delicate jerky jets form a harmonious phase where are cooing the charms of a twangy synth. Another line of sequences, as so shaded as that of Fallen Angel from Heaven, skips in the background. It will become the main structure of a heavy and slow title with a light stroboscopic tangent which magnetize a harmonious line of which the charms will melt in layers of silvery mists.

Into Infinity is a wonderful title with a slow and hypnotic structure which gets out from a nebulous opening. A line of sequences emerges from an ectoplasmic entity in order to skip as much slightly as a prisoner noticing that his gaoler has felt asleep. Striding across dark corridors, he hears the winds hooted and feels a metallic drizzle pecking him at his face. We are floating the senses on the watch! A synth unfolds its apathetic layer which doesn’t however put to sleep a firmer and more lively rhythmic approach which moves at the point of 6 minutes. This rhythm wins in intensity in a short phase where the synths are more colored with a swarm of melodious chords. It's a very good title from Piero Monachello's repertoire, but the best remains without a doubt From Turin to Brussels, a single released in August 2016 and which is always available for free on the Bandcamp site of Alluste. But before going to its extended version, SpaceTime Energy has everything of Software of the 85 to 88 years with its morphic spirals but with the imprint of Alluste and of his melodies anchored in melancholy. From Turin to Brussels (Extended) is a great title well fed with juicy sequences and with a cosmic mist which get allied in a ballet in two tints and in two phases. The structure of rhythm offers keys which skip such as the feet of a young deer on a pond of fire. And, as it’s often the case with Alluste, the sequencer throws two other structures of rhythms which skip and oscillate in alternation, selling the first structure of rhythm in a momentary oversight. Over the years, the sequencer and its art of building rhythms have become the big strength of the Italian musician who succeeds constantly to thwart our waits with forms as unforeseen as unpredictable. The harmonies and the effects are fineries, well in symbiosis, which are often cherries on a sundae. The Indifference of Time shows how much Alluste has evolve since Constellation in 2008. The approach is a good mixture of old Neuronium's morphic beats and Michel Huygen's meditative ambiences in a good evolutionary structure of rhythm with sequences in continual movement and which adapts rather easily to the approach sometimes rock and sometimes fragile of a harmonious envelope which we notice hardly, so much the sequencer is dominant.

Dominant! Such is the qualifier that we can affix without mistake in those movements of sequences which surround an album where the silence runs away from everywhere. Without artifices, nor too many allegorical effects, THE SILENCE OF TIME is a very good album where the sequencing patterns tame the silence, even with an array of soft rhythms, of soporific rhythms among which the ritornellos and the reversals are very good elements of charms. We have to listen to it loudly however because the production and the mastering are really cut from the guidelines of the silence.

Sylvain Lupari (January 10th, 2017) ****½*

SynthSequences.com

Available at Alluste Bandcamp