“Aquarius is a melodious album with more progressive and bolder movements suggesting that the best is yet to come for Alpha Lyra”
1 Crystal River 17:01
2 Aquatic Dream 15:31
3 Aquarius 17:48
4 Ocean Waves 22:02
5 Batanga Reef 4:54
(CD/DDL 77:25) (V.F.)
(Ambient, Berlin School)
After the stars, Alpha Lyra traces his music to a world closer to us, the aquatic world. AQUARIUS is the result of an ambitious project which consists of writing music for a book on fish entitled Aquarius…sous le signe des poissons. The music was written over a period of 5 months, in parallel with that of the book.
Choirs rise from the abyssal depths of Crystal River. A soft movement on a synth with discreet flutes which embrace these frail choirs, like mermaids singing the crystalline beauties of the reflections of crystal-clear water. Incredibly soft, the synth ripples float like fluid celestial layers. It's like a nice journey on flutes and on enchanted choirs which make us discover the virtues of tenderness in a captive universe. Aquatic Dream uses the same tranquility on fragmented harmonies. The movement progresses in a corridor filled with echo where a suave sequenced melody undulates in the blue reflections of a surface agitated by synth winds, like the whistles of spring. The slow intro of AQUARIUS is based on a synth with undulating layers which swirl gently with chords and choirs in celestial harmonies. A good spellbinding moment that inspires a melodious growing score on synths with slow evolution, a little like if the abyss of the underwater layers would be the best place underground. Ocean Waves is a long ceremony of a melodious sweetness with enveloping synth strata. A good silky sequence animates this light tempo which is subdivided to create another melody evolving harmoniously around the choirs and heavy synth strata, thus forging a very good passage of a hypnotic and restful sweetness. The synths are superb and leave behind multitudes of strident, spectral and enveloping streaks. From their reverberations a piano shakes its notes accompanied by choirs of varying harmonies, like the guards of the secret entrance to Ocean Waves which is an excellent piece of music that you never tire of listening to, both for relaxing and dreaming as for pleasure to enjoy a synth melody in a perfect sound harmony. Batanga Reef completes this second opus from Christian Piednoir with a melody in total cohesion with the musical and harmonious values of this musical banquet for an aquatic world.
Music to accompany a book! Music for fish! You must have the convictions of your beliefs and at this level Alpha Lyra seems totally credible to me. AQUARIUS is a melodious album with more progressive and bolder movements than Music for the Stars, suggesting that the best is yet to come for this French synthesist. A good musical journey where the ambient mixes with light and minimalist rhythm, giving ample time to sit and dream like the crow flies.
Sylvain Lupari (January 26th, 2007) *****
Available at Alpha Lyra Bandcamp