“Something has changed in Colin's music and for the good of our ears greedy for this something new hiding in all the 55 minutes here”
1 360 Transition 11:32
2 High Speed Thaw 11:30
3 Time Lapse Sunset 12:10
4 Synaptic Pruning 5:43
5 Sleep Inertia 5:05
6 Distorted Reflection of a Season 9:19
(CD-R/DDL 55:21) (V.F.)
(Cosmic Rock, Berlin School)
Something happened in Colin Rayment's music! His rhythms are always fluid, wandering between the ambient spaces and the sustained rhythms. Except they are heavier and they float gracefully. In addition, they often take tangents that throws us off while charming us. And lately he has implanted those voices. At times, murmurs like laments that compete with those we have known for many moons in the universe of synthesized voices. TRANSITIONAL STATES is a concept album about time. These changes imperceptible to the eye but not on our emotions between the seasons and which are captured during their transition. But I can't reach the goal of Colin's concept. It gives me this impression of an album with a more cosmic essence than I would have imagined. But a powerful album at the level of emotions or rhythmic charges that bring me back to the Middle Ages. The color is green like the woods and its essence is as sylvan as it's spatial. That being said, we have a splendid album in our hands where we are sure of nothing. Here, rhythms, like melodies and ambiences are in constant movement. Colin Rayment makes sure to fill our ears, as our souls of heart-breaking melodies and arrangements blown by a synth and/or genius arpeggios.
And it begins with 360 Transition which places us in a forest of humm where large synth layers, lightly sprinkled with orchestral vapors, invade our ears which perceive in parallel rollings of percussions. A celestial silence takes place with chords falling with a guitar tone on a clay-humid musical soil. The power of the sibylline synth layers comes back to haunt these ambiences with a melodramatic force equal to the excursions into the Universe of Thierry Fervant. A big wooshh is responsible for the first mood-rhythm transfer of TRANSITIONAL STATES. This rhythm follows an oblique gyratory shape. Floating while being attracted by the desire for percussions, it imposes a melodious first presence with a synth murmuring strange non-human vocalizations and the keyboard which sculpts a very beautiful melody (warning; earworm detectable here) in a fascinating duel filled of bold and resonant chords that stimulate the share of drama and thrills in us. And while our ears are magnetized to this drifting structure, a 3rd rhythmic structure revives us with arrangements to give chills. Arrangements à la Vangelis, with a touch of Tangerine Dream in Legend, but which do not sound like the Greek wizard. A very strong first title that will illuminate your part of the soul once Distorted Reflection of a Season is over. High Speed Thaw offers a usual opening to the EM genre we listen to, with an ascent of synth lines whose contrasts make the first 90 seconds sparkle. A rhythm straddling the void causes religious voices to hum an ecclesiastical tune, while different arpeggio tones ring out and are murmuring those absent rattling effects. We have reached an ambient phase rich in effects and in disparate tones, thus nourishing our ears for at least 4 minutes where everything seems to be idling. These are innocent scintillating arpeggios that awaken the rhythmic beast. Deprived of its booty, the pace goes faster. Percussive effects, like hooves on wood, are added to the second and short flight of High Speed Thaw. The decor is grandiose with a good seductive mermaid voice that captivates ears already busy hearing the rhythm getting rids of its percussions and its sequencer so to only make sparkling these arpeggios illuminating a final as beautiful as the heart of High Speed Thaw.
Time Lapse Sunset is the jewel of this album and arguably the track closest to have inspiring the road of Igneous. The title needs 120 seconds to shake its lethargic opening with lazy pulsations that go around in circles, or jumping on the same spot, in a sound texture filled with these musical strangeness that will soften our listening throughout this new adventure of Colin Rayment. The 4th minute sets in with a galloping rhythm as the synth draws scarlet lines and whistles them as the primary melody. There is another element in this decor. A mischievous and childish voice that imitates the synth, but with a timbre whose difference is as noticeable as it is seductive. The rhythm, still overlapping imaginary plains, takes a second boost a little after the 6th minute. And there we have a great Berlin School where good percussions in progressive rock mode are grafted and those voices of astral sirens. Always modifying his rhythmic vision, Colin gives a last impetus, more tender and romantic, to Time Lapse Sunset which fills our ears again and again with these inexplicable sounds but oh so much intuitive on our emotions. In any case, mines! If you are curious and want to hear this new Colin Rayment as soon as possible, listen to these two shorter tracks. In terms of steady rhythm, Synaptic Pruning will make you hear these airs so seductive of the synth. Sleep Inertia is closer to what Colin offers in these last years with a slight tinge of Tangerine Dream over an ambient rhythm which gets carried away with rock percussions in its second part. These are two short extracts that give you the full picture of what this TRANSITIONAL STATES is. A little longer, Distorted Reflection of a Season will remind you of the main lines of this last album with a more daring vision which will be grafted to a rhythmic structure in 3 stages. History to complete his tour of charms without smudging, Colin integrates here some sound surprises, in particular at the percussive level, which will know how to magnetize you so to hear TRANSITIONAL STATES again. We call that, a trap for sensitive music lovers interested in a more complex, well-structured and harmoniously addictive EM. Spoil yourself! For 4 days, I've been listening to this album and Igneous one after the other. Some great Colin Rayment!
Sylvain Lupari (December 11th, 2020) ****½*
Available at SynGate Bandcamp