“With its blend of Software and Tangerine Dream, the music of Alluste is always pleasant to hear”
1 Grand Father Paradox| 8:21 2 Traveling Through Time 9:27 3 FTL (Faster than Light) 6:05 4 Rainbow Caustic Effect 11:28 5 Traversable Wormhole 13:11 6 Time Warps 7:51 Alluste Music
(DDL 56:26) (V.F.) (Berlin School)
This second album of Alluste in 2016, TUNNELS IN TIME-SPACE is in the continuity of Stars with its rhythms very in the Franke and Software styles as well as its surrounding ambiences which roam around a cosmos which seems worn out by all these sonic elements that EM has extracted from it. The Italian synthesist always exploits these slow ambiospherical introductions that he has perfumed, since Stars, of esoteric elements or seraphic moods, before exposing his delicate rhythms embroidered on movements of sequences which exploit their shadows with magnificence in constantly evolving structures. You like what you read so far? That is what is made TUNNELS IN TIME-SPACE!
This is the way is built Grand Father Paradox of which the ambient rhythm, and its sequences which alternate delicately the pace, goes adrift under the soft caresses of a synth which is in a dreamy mode. The title soaks in a cosmic atmosphere with a subtle nuance in the flow that we only notice after the 2nd, and even the 3rd, listening so much the seraphic approach inundate our senses. Rapacious birds of cosmos which hoot in hollow winds, Traveling Through Time begins with a slender reverberating breath which spreads an ochred shade and where bursts a thick cloud of noises, as cosmic as organic. A superb movement of sequences emerges around the 3rd minute, sculpturing another structure of ambient rhythm whose delicacy is submerged by a sound fauna which renews and reveals new charms. Split into 3 phases, as mainly all the tracks here Traveling Through Time implodes with a clearly more lively rhythm a little after the point of the 6 minutes with sequences which catch the pace of the previous one in order to weave a more concrete but a still completely floating rhythm. It's a very good title with a quite good enriched sequencing pattern which skips and mixes its beats beneath a color of the winds of mist which offer beautiful areal zigzags. More direct in its rhythmic approach, FTL (Faster than Light) proposes also an ambient rhythm with a movement of sequences with keys, furtive and light, skip as snips of scissors into silk under the harmonies of a synth in TD mode of the 70's. The introduction of Rainbow Caustic Effect is forged in melancholy with the chords of a pensive keyboard which weakens its dreams in a storm of winds delicately watered with heterogeneous electronic effects. The movement becomes less ambient after the point of the 3 minutes, adopting even the charms of a mid-tempo which remains hung on in the approach always very nostalgic of a melody mislaid by a keyboard always darkened by layers of seraphic voices. If I have to bet on a single from this album, that would be it! The links between the 3 phases here are very subtle when Rainbow Caustic Effect gets loose from its embryo floating in the astral cloudiness around the 6th minute with sequences which shake the rhythm of continuous jolts as in Poland, and in effects of electronic gas, always as in Poland. This passage, quite pleasing, guides the track towards a livelier structure where the movement wears out its sequences in a long spherical dance.
Harmonies of a breath of flute and the echo of knockings introduce the more minimalist structure of Traversable Wormhole. The synth manipulates our senses with the very melodious airs of flutes while the sequences cut out with desire the primary beatings of the introduction, bringing the title towards a short phase of atmospheres where the synth divides its charms with solos and breaths of flute always into a harmonious mode. The movement takes back its beatings and their metallic shadows under a hugely wrapping of a capricious mist. The approach became minimalist, Traversable Wormhole reveals little by little its charms with more harmonious sequences which ring like the airs of a xylophone pursued by essences of flute. That sounds very Software, but in a more ambient approach and more smothered by an epidemic blackness. Time Warps concludes this last opus from Piero Monachello by always staying near the Stars zone. The rhythm is more fluid with a movement of bass sequences which takes the shape of a comings and goings on a line of rhythm decorated with other jumpier sequences. Scents of Tangerine Dream, from the Tyger area, can be felt in the evasive harmonies which are in a darker envelope. Accompanied by bites of metal jingles, the synth spreads its nasal harmonies such as a forsaken saxophone which pours its plaintive harmonies in the somber alleys of time. And yes, the movement exploits its 8 minutes in order to offer its fluctuation, so much in the structure of rhythm that the harmonies, before ending TUNNELS IN TIME-SPACE in a more floodlit approach where the rhythm, charmingly jumping, seems to cavort under a radiant sun. This is good Alluste! A little more audacious, from album to album, but always so great in its blend of Software and Tangerine Dream.
Sylvain Lupari (August 28th, 2016) *****
Available at Alluste Bandcamp