“Poetic and strangely musical for a work so ambient, From Berlin to Paris releases an immense perfume of tenderness which exceeds the enchantment”
1 Berlin 6:00 am 12:09
2 Unter den Linden 11:57
3 From Berlin to Paris 19:10
4 Beaubourg 16 pm 15:28
5 Midnight in Paris 8:15
(DDL/CD-r 67:10) (V.F.)
(Melodious and slightly rhythmic Berlin School)
It's been a while since we heard something new from Alpha Lyra. And I must admit that the wait was worth it. FROM BERLIN TO PARIS is a really good album soaked with a nostalgic poetry that always fed Christian Piednoir's musical influences. It's a musical journey through the timeless loops of time where Edgar Froese, Michel Huygen and Vangelis haunted our dreams with some finely sequenced or astral movements, if not morphic. But beyond everything, it's a splendid album where the ambient music regains prestige with a poetic approach as much eurhythmic than the singing of angels.
Berlin 6:00 am wakes us up for this electronic odyssey with a delicate Teutonic movement of the sequencer. Lines of parallel sequences skip by intertwining their keys under the whistles from a synth with the melody weakened. The rhythm is contemplative and follows an oscillatory curve with jumping keys which flutter around such as fireflies mislaid in the linear imperfections of a slender tunnel. Another line of sequences, more harmonious, criss-crosses this mesmerizing rhythmic continual chassé-croisé, chasing a nebula melody with harmonies acuteness which squats in the oscillating forms of this soft electronic ballet that is Berlin 6:00 am. After an intro where the space is filled of electronic tones, Unter den Linden shakes its ambient membrane with luminous hoops whose echoes give birth to a fine movement of sequences. Everything is soft, poetic around this last Christian Piednoir's work. And on this famous avenue of Berlin, the jumping keys mobilize themselves and synchronize their nervous capers by jumping into the shade of others, crisscrossing and harmonizing their chords with other sequences of which the glass tones sing among the breaths and breezes of synths fill by the aromas of snows' oracles. Dreamlike, floating and extremely bewitching, the journey towards Paris is of breathes and of voices. Breaths of synth which float like tears of melancholy, and voices of heavens' nymphs who whisper nostalgia, From Berlin to Paris is a long ode to contemplativity. A bit like we are on a train watching the landscapes unfolding in front of our eyes filled of nostalgia. The veils of ether à la Neuronium float with such a sibylline beauty that our ears are closing to the outside world, looking for the comfort of this morphic ballet for celestial voices and wrapping synth waves. Soft, beautiful and seraphic. The synths chant with such a sweetness and seem to possess a soul, making of Christian Piednoir a wizard. From Berlin to Paris opens the doors of perception to an ambient universe that Alpha Lyra decorates of delicate sleepy melodies. Ambient and just as much musical, Beaubourg 16 pm extends the assuaging journey of the title-track with fine tinkling arpeggios which ring in some long and wrapping sighs of mist. We float in this Milky Way weaved by musical stars which sparkle and sing a lullaby for disobedient. The dexterity of Alpha Lyra for the ambient melodies lets us discover a soothing universe which can be as well melodious as restful. Especially with Midnight in Paris and its seraphic voices which float and get lost in lines of synths to the breaths of mist.
Poetic and strangely musical for a work which is so ambient, FROM BERLIN TO PARIS releases an immense perfume of tenderness which exceeds the enchantment. If from the first minutes we let ourselves caught by the twinkling chain of dancing sequences, we also let ourselves be seduced by the ambient phases which quietly invite each other until forming an immense atmospheric ode where the breaths of winds in tints of angelic voices haunt our ears well long after we doze off. Simply beautiful!
Sylvain Lupari (July 12th, 2013) ****½*
Available at Alpha Lyra Bandcamp