CODE INDIGO: Take the Money & Run (2014)
Updated: Jul 13, 2020
“This is a splendid album which ends one of the very beautiful stories of the contemporary England EM scene; the one of Code Indigo”
1 Eden to Corruption 10:36
2 Call of the Earth (Ambient) 6:00
3 Return to Gaia 7:30
4 Ashes and Snow 14:27
5 A Question of Answers 11:39
6 Memory Code I 6:12
7 Memory Code II 8:25
8 Memory Code III 2:03
9 Memory Code IV 9:00
10 Memory Code V 2:52
11 Memory Code VI 5:30
(CD/DDL 78:55) (V.F.)
(Progressive, melodic e-rock)
It's over! TAKE THE MONEY & RUN is the swan song of one of the rare groups of musicians who mix deliciously their EM in the harmonious caresses of New Age, in the dreamlike structures of the English progressive music and in the heavy and devastating rhythms of the England School style. It's a delicious mix which has seduced thousands of ears since the very first Code Indigo album released in 1996; For Whom the Bell. More than 15 years later and 9 albums farther, Code Indigo loops the loop with a last album which makes a last lap of honour and revisits some of the big works of a committed band whose very esthetic music always denounced the excesses and injustices of our modern world. Behind a concept approach very near Meltdown, David Wright and Nigel Turner-Heffer have revisited and retouched some of the big tracks from the Code Indigo catalog. Music pieces lost in compilations (E-Day 2010), in sessions (Meltdown) and remixes of tracks which became immortal of the England band.
A line of sequences, full of keys which gurgle in the noises of machineries, goes round in circles, and looks for its rhythmic aim in the reflections of synth streaks with a metallic squeaks. Like a dance of lost steps walking round and round in a disused factory, Eden to Corruption leads us into the Code Indigo's universe of thousand paradoxes. Between a heavy and aggressive rhythm, suave and ethereal harmonies, and ambiences at both Berber and contemplative; the music of Code Indigo travels through its very personal colors. Those who are familiar with the band will recognize Eden to Chaos from TimeCode, as well as Eden to Chaos (Corrupted Time Mix) which appeared on the E-Day's special CD from the Dutch label Groove. In fact, Eden to Corruption is a delicious remix of both tracks which are melted together in a new sonic envelope. The rhythm is circular. It swirls heavily with a line of bass sequences which leans on good strikings of electronic percussions. Heavy and spheroidal, it embroiders a fine stroboscopic line to which Andy Lobban's aggressive guitar nibbles with ferocity while keeping a little of energy for very musical solos and more ethereal strata. We stamp of the feet on a very lively rhythm which goes and comes, as we meditate on the very sensual groans of Louise Eggerton and the very nostalgic passages from the pianos of David Wright and Robet Fox who exchange their dreamy melodies for Andy Lobban's very penetrating guitar bites. We are on familiar ground and especially comfortable with this remix which introduces marvellously the next 60 minutes of this album.
Call of the Earth (Ambient Mix), always out of TimeCode, is unrecognizable. This ambient bewitching lullaby, of which the soft rhythmic swarm lays on fine tribal percussions, is restructured around the very seraphic voice of Louise Eggerton while the synth lines with whistle for dreamers is replaced by a magnificent piano and its very melancholic melody. This is great and more contemporary. We still remain in the oneiric realm with the wonderful Return to Gaia; a new version of Gaia that we found on this E-Day 2010. Between Pink Floyd and Moody Blues, Return to Gaia offers a delicate rhythm, almost oriental tribal, with fine percussions which weave a mesmerizing ethereal dance on which Andy Lobban's guitar floats and scatters solos in the tears of a piano and of its clandestine harmonies. The arrangements are of a seraphic neatness to make melt concrete. Without being aware of it, we have just passed throughout 25 minutes of pure magic when Ashes and Snow falls in our ears like an unexpected present. Written during the Meltdown sessions, it offers a slow rhythm with fine synth pads of which the fluty aromas are mixing up in our ears with the very ethereal voice of Carys. A little like in Meltdown, a male voice roams all over a structure and its evolution which goes alongside of Eden to Corruption. The slow rhythm part dives into a kind of jerky progressive rock à la Pink Floyd where Dave Bareford's guitar does all the work of seduction. A Question of Answers is a studio version of this famous track built around evolutions as much stormy than poetic that we found on the much acclaimed album Live at the Derby Cathedral 1996, released in 1998. This is a great track which exhales all the nuances of Code Indigo (e-rock, e-rock prog, New Age and England School) where the ballad genre turns into a light easy listening, then into a solid e-rock with zest of England School which is shadowed in a light fusion between jazz and blues. The synths are very lyrical. They sing with a dark mood over an evolving structure where futuristic and retro ambiences get intertwined on a slightly bumpy structure drown in great orchestral arrangements and suave synth solos perfumed of saxophone breezes which melt too in the divine voice of Carys. This is great music that we have here. From ambient to down-tempo then harder rhythms, MemoryCode is a sonic journey in all through the periods of Code Indigo. It's a kind of potpourri which overflies the TimeCode, Uforia, For Whom the Bell and Chill albums with reinterpretations of tracks such as Rapture, Syncgate and Lost Radio Close-Down in a more contemporary envelope which breathes all the musical intrigues of Meltdown, the last classic of Code Indigo.
TAKE THE MONEY & RUN is a splendid album which ends one of the great histories of the contemporary EM scene from England. Code Indigo was a big group which broke ranks in this universe where the complicity lived often solo, from where the very mesmerizing musicality of the English band. The presentation of the album, the artwork is as much well presented than its music, with a very nice booklet which includes nice photos of the members and which also explains the origins of the 11 tracks offered in it. Except that there is a last chapter to this end. Indeed, the band offers a DVD of the Meltdown concert played at the E-Day Festival in 2013. An inescapable and a top notch production. Yep....Sadly, Code Indigo dies just here, between our ears. But will always remain there for years to come.
Sylvain Lupari (March 17th, 2014) ****½*
Available at AD Music