“Myriad Stars is yet another fine album of cosmic and ambient rhythms skilfully built up by Alpha Wave Movement”
1 Beacon I2:59
2 The Dark Lure6:22
3 Beacon II3:10
4 Gravity Well Flux Part I2:54
5 Gravity Well Flux Part II5:24
6 Beacon III3:46
7 Anatomical Universe7:19
8 Singularities9:30
9 Star Birth14:05
10 73 74 61 725:24
(DDL 61:08) (V.F.)
(Mostly Ambient Pacific School)
Dusty winds make sing their prismed particles which mutate into long guttural drones. On a carpet of finely drummed percussions and scattered noises of ballasts, Beacon I shakes its frail ambient rhythm which skips in sinuous hoarse voices and synth pads to the soft airy caresses. It's with pleasure that my ears get stuffed again of the very cosmic universe of Alpha Wave Movement. Composed between 2006 and 2011, MYRIAD STARS is a fascinating fusion between the very cosmic sequenced style of Thought Guild, another Gregory Kyryluk's project, and the ambient music a little more down-to-earth of AWM whose cosmic fragrances are filled of Vangelis and Steve Roach influences.
The Dark Lure follows with astral synth waves which float as angels' sighs. The onset is profoundly ambient with lines of synths which interlace into soft crystalline chirpings. A line of bass frees furtive chords, shaping so a cosmic rhythm which moves stealthily in order to finally adopt a tangent a little more livened up with metallic jingles and soft absent percussions which put the table to a beautiful line of sequences to the nervous jolts. Swirling and zigzagging under the caresses of a synth which prefers the cosmic moods to some brief ethereal solos, the rhythm of The Dark Lure becomes spheroidal and also becomes a prelude to the good Anatomical Universe and its Jean-Michel Jarre's cosmic fury. After the very cosmic and ambient rhythm à la Roach (all this there in hardly 3 minutes) of Beacon II, the Gravity Well Flux saga brings us in the most enveloping borders of Cosmos such as seen by Gregory Kyryluk. We would believe to be in a space shuttle, immersing from a long cryogenic sleep, with slow morphic moods of Gravity Well Flux Part I and its waltzing and philharmonic synth waves à la Vangelis. Gravity Well Flux Part II falls in our ears with a resounding intro, kind of THX, before evaporating its astral waves with the coming of a strange rhythm which is panting on a fascinating meshing of sequences from which the hatched jumps are structuring a cosmic Roach dance beneath slow and morphic synth pads. Nervous and very lively, with good synth solos filled by the Berlin School perfumes. We dive back into the industrial cosmic darkness à la Blade Runner with Beacon III which aims to be a nice and adequate intro to the very good and entailing Anatomical Universe where AWM mixes skilfully his Jarre and Roach influences in 7 too short minutes. Brilliant!
The introduction of Singularities shows at which point how Alpha Wave Movement handles to perfection the cosmic structures rich in sound depths. We would guess to be in a lunar base observing a dance of stars which sparkle around celestial bodies and cosmic auroras borealis. A line of bass sequence spreads chords as slow as heavy whose resonance draws a furtive ambient rhythm which swirls delicately, like a rangy stroboscopic filet, under the more and more present singings of interstellar oracles. Star Birth adopts the same precepts but in a longer frame and with a beautiful ambient rhythm finely drummed in tandem with more crystalline sequences. 73 74 61 72 presents a structure clearly more exploratory with a thick cloud of cosmic tones which slide over radio transmissions and the hootings of strange extraterrestrial bugs. It's an audacious track to conclude an album which mixes marvellously the ambiosonic boldnesses, the always serene exploratory moods as well as the cosmic rhythms as much lively as restful. In brief an album just as the image of Alpha Wave Movement; an artist who never stops amazed and whose discovery I strongly recommend.
Sylvain Lupari (April 24th, 2014) *****
Available at Harmonic Resonance Recordings Bandcamp