“The music is made in the flesh and bones of the first volume with a bunch of titles exploring the many visages of Electronica”
1 Distant Place 7:27 2 Blown Away 8:16 3 Freedom 6:34 4 Elipse 6:12 5 Maniac 6:19 6 Fly 7:13 7 Prism 8:33 8 Believe 6:59 9 What You Leave Behind 5:14 Andy Pickford Music (V.F.)
(DDL 62:49) (Electronica)
The radiations of a strange organic gurgling hang in the air while Distant Place installs its rhythmic base with a sustained pulsation. Ghostly voices effects, like in Binar, float through this mass of rhythms now composed of this filament of stroboscopic sequences and some sober electronic percussions. Keyboard riffs support this tempo which gets increase with the presence of a bass line as voracious as the palpitations emitted by the sequencer. A pop music singer performs a melody part which is supported by a choir of spectral voices. A guitar comes later, to launch harmonic solos, nailing Distant Place in its approach of electronic rock weighing and lively. Released 1 month later, OBJECTS & EXPRESSIONS 2 remains in the same way as the first volume. AP offers a nice brochette of titles which all have a little something, even those which seem to us unattractive at a first listen. Hold on, we will end to like them all…
Blown Away follows with an Electronica pattern and a rhythmic structure that goes from a down-tempo, and its notes of keyboards which freeze with a rather lunar harmonic design, and a solid up-tempo nervous and very well-fed percussion and sequences which like to sound as a hail of bullets. The many sound effects, including vocals, stay very effective while the bass line is also ravaging with a fluid move. Freedom is this kind of title that screws us to our emotions. The rhythm is slow and twirls like a beautiful slow with pulsations, echoes of them and some sober percussions. The arrangements are sewn into seraphic lace with a celestial chorus which enchants and a few bows on a very discreet cello. Everything is hyper harmonious and seems just as hyper fragile, even when the pace accelerates our pulse and a guitar adds a little more weight. Rose bonbon music impossible to not like! We are in the melodic and romantic phase of OBJECTS & EXPRESSIONS 2 with another splendid ballad; Ellipse. This time the rhythm is more animated, like a cosmic down-tempo, with violins whirling all around our senses and an electronic melody which makes twirl its belt of sequences in spheroidal mode. Arpeggios sing under the orchestrations, like a keyboardist alone under a shower of prism. Maniac reminds us that romance is far behind with a heavy and powerful lead rhythm that turns fiercely. A frenetic and hyper jerky rhythm stuffed with riffs and fed by percussions as hungry as our feet can tolerate. Fly is a hyper-ballad well catching and especially very melodious. The decor is still lunar with a hobbling rhythm in a context of electro-cosmic which spits good solos synth. Prism is rather in the synth-pop genre with the artifices of the 90's while Believe is the kind of ambient-house with a ritornello of arpeggios always melodious and voices effects which are much present in this sequel to Objects & Expressions I. Effects which are also present in What You Leave Behind which oscillates between a down-tempo and a slow for Zombies that are replete. This kind of slow beat spins in an electronic setting where rock, stars and an Electronica not always easy to identify make such as good union as in the first part of Andy Pickford's newest sonic saga.
Sylvain Lupari (January 16th, 2018) *****
Available at AP Bandcamp