“For those who have devoured the Berlin School style and especially the music of Javi Canovas this SomeWhere is in this confort zone”
1 Audiomultiplo 20:33
2 Midsound 16:16
3 Somewhere 14:16
4 Sonar 8:36
5 Stereolocus 6:04
(CD-r 65:45) (V.F.)
(Vintage Berlin School)
The least we can say is that 2014 was a rather productive year for Javi Canovas. Two albums solo, the preparation of the third one and a first collaboration with Miguel Justo. The duet is called Audiometria and the album is entitled SOMEWHERE. New stooge, same recipe! And why to change it when there is always a public lover of those based sequences movements of a retro Berlin School which is a bit progressive? This is the menu that waits those aficionados of the genre with this album. Recorded live in their studio, the Spanish duet proposes 3 long movements which offers these undulatory rhythms in constants permutations where the parallel lines of sequences forge as many rhythms as harmonies in a pattern of retro Berlin School where the synth solos and their acrobatic cabrioles are almost absent. It's all about sequences. Only sequences and mostly à la Franke! Ah yes... The last two tracks are mixing an ambient and sequenced music with perfumes of jazz or
of lounge from the piano. Different and intriguing!
A soft breeze of flute opens the introduction of Audiomultiplo which takes shape with a thick cloud of synth lines of which the breaths become entangled in a slow movement of lunar waltz. A circular line of sequences makes its keys jumping with spasms. These ones are jostling in large oscillating loops and encircle the notes of a pensive piano which crumbles a harmony which just has not the guts to take shape. A synth invites itself. It throws short solos and lines of mist around the keys which start to be short of breath. Slowly, the introduction is fading and give room to a movement of sequences which makes jump up its keys and the skeletons of their shadows. The movement exposes its protean colors, while other keys are skipping outside a heavy undulatory rhythm which crackles of its somber bass sequences. The rhythm that follows takes a gradual swiftness with cymbals which sparkle such as metallic wings in a jar of glass as the sequences scatter other doubles in a fascinating entangled choreography. The keys are all jumping, scattering colors and tones in a structure which is slowed down by the multiple breezes of synths and their effects of astral nebulosity, pushing the last moments of Audiomultiplo in an ambient phase. Midsound offers a pattern rich of sequenced movements whose parallel structures are bickering under the caresses of metallic mists, a charming flute very TD and some breaths of ethereal voices. The introductory rhythm is split in several elements filled of contrasts. If a line of sequences raises a harmonious structure, resonant and wavering like in Poland, with spasmodic keys which embrace a circular movement, the duet lies down two other contiguous lines, of which one of bass sequences, which make pulse and drum the keys in a minimalist structure which spreads the principle of an ambient rhythm in constant tranquil ascent. This first phase dies out in the rippling banks of mist. Heavy and resonant, a line of bass sequences is whipping the brief meditative moods. We have just crossed the 8 minutes and the rhythm gets violent. Brief and deep oscillations run to lose breath, losing keys which have difficulty in catching up the pace. Showing a velocity which progresses ceaselessly, the rhythm of Midsound spreads its ample loops which run like furious oscillations from where are falling mislaid keys and of which the opposite bounces captivate a hearing which makes dance nervously the fingers.
The title-track opens with morphic phases where the waves and the shadows of the white noises are undulating like some radioactive gases pushed by soft winds. This reminds to me of these anesthetic moments of Neuronium with these twisted solos and their anesthetic effects. A sequence emerges a little after the 4th minute. It skips in solo. Another line of sequence unwinds keys which run in wide circles around the first linear movement. Another one spreads a more harmonious approach. And another one throws its keys which skip delicately, amplifying a structure the of which polymorphic directions eventually weave a surprising symbiosis between a motionless rhythm and its ambient melody knotted in the multiple of its sequences. Sonar is an ambient and dark track with a very pensive piano which frees its vague notes in the singings of the twists of a synth filled by ether. It's kind of a pianist which cries over battlefields where the souls are squabbling in order to not leave. Stereolocus steals from Midsound this structure of sequences which reminds me so much of Poland. The rhythm is sneaky. Behind this constant cloud of cracklings, it pulses in a dense veil of reverberation. Particles and cloud of white noises hide a slow binary melody which battles between the piano notes with perfumes of jazz, ringings which remind a vague Tangerine Dream melody and with synth pads which float as the shadows of a threat.
Javi Canovas or Audiometria! SOMEWHERE doesn't go out of Canovas' way of producing EM. The fans of the Spanish synth wizard will be well served here with an album which stays in his zone of comfort, even with the last two tracks which would have been able to nest on his Eunomia album. I quite enjoyed it. This is good old Berlin School filled of those psychedelic perfumes of this ether from the old days
Sylvain Lupari (February 5th, 2015) ***½**
Avaiable at Javi Canovas Bandcamp