“This album plunges the listener in a sound journey filled of cosmic Dark Ambient”
1 Enter 7:12
2 Changes 7:44
3 Beyond Reason 8:42
4 Unity 7:40
5 Strange Objects 4:40
6 Energy Flow 6:34
7 Source Connection 8:26
8 Compassion 6:02
9 Vibration Stream 10:04
10 Exit 7:10
(DDL 74:14) (V.F.)
(Cosmic Dark Ambient)
The American label Synphaera continues to comb the planet in the hope of finding artists who have interesting things to offer in the vast universe of EM. And after K. Markov and his album Visitors, it's the turn of Cosmic Replicant to present us a sample of his know-how with a first album on Exosphere, THE WAVES. Musician of Russian origin, Pavel Shirshin already has a good dozen albums to his credit where he flirts with Electronica, Psybient and Dark Ambient. And it's precisely in this field that he imagined the musical journey of THE WAVES. Well scattered on 10 tracks, this album plunges the listener in a sound journey filled with atmospheric and cosmic panoramas with a music that slowly evolves to dive in soft structures of rhythms and return to these landscapes without rhythms, but with life. I quite liked this first journey proposed by Cosmic Replicant inside a good headphone. And this, to not escaping anything at random.
And it starts with Enter that draws a path between our ears with dull colored synth waves that drift solemnly in an ambient panorama. These waves are propelled by barely felt implosions, like a breath betrayed at times by a muted bass impulse. A more colorful thread makes an abstract chant sparkle, drifting with its undulations in this peaceful ocean of sound. An attentive ear flushes out the splouch of these waves. The movement remains calm on its 7 minutes with these waves emitting a fine line of resonance which remains frozen on this peaceful astral parade. The resonances get more amplified with the presence of Changes whose waves are filled of organic murmurs. The track displays an imposing ambient presence with translucent shadows that stand out, drifting two sonic illusions face to face in a context where intensity remains the second element of the track's charms. Beyond Reason doesn't change things by surfing on the same pattern of waves drifting in the cosmos with a trickle of sizzle fixed to its outline. It sounds like the movement of a space shuttle, as often presented in blockbusters. Still without any trace of rhythmic life on this album, Beyond Reason manages to seduce with its rumbling tone and those filaments that break away to create a waltz of musical lines of living colors, even managing to create a communication code that turns into an earworm. Unity proposes a more lively episode with an almost organic electronic fauna, if not avian, living on a long sound vessel that emits a continuous communication signal in a Cosmos where we feel for the first time this lack of oxygen responsible for this claustrophobic climate that invades more and more in the listening of THE WAVES.
So, it's at the right time that the bouncing rhythm arrives under a melody played on the keyboard of Strange Objects. The bass-sequences throb on a sequenced pattern in a psybient environment where I hear pieces of glass conversing. Obviously, everything belongs to the joys of our imagination and mine hears a metamorphosis in certain ambient noises that become a prismatic icy breath. A breath that hovers in symbiosis with the pulsations that weaken towards a finale dominated by these piercing breaths at times. Energy Flow continues to build on the groundwork laid by Strange Objects by offering a bouncy organic texture. The rhythm is irregular, in contrast to the sound waves that ripple with musicality over a percussive fauna that gets more hungry. The synthesizer is very active on this ambient rhythm where a sequenced harmony loop also coos. Its solos and spatial harmonies flood a more musical panorama here. A very good atmospheric track, Source Connection takes us to meditative ambient music territories with a series of loops rolling on a carpet of reverberating shadows. An ethereal choir adorns the last phases. The hiisshh of emptiness brings to life the very dark Compassion and its reverberating drones that stand out. Superb track of ambient music with a very adequate vision in relation to the title, the tears that form wail to give us chills. After this excellent track of Cosmic Replicant, Paul Shirshin proposes another track whose ambient music depicts admirably its meaning. Just like with Enter, Vibration Stream takes us back into Dark Ambient cosmic music with a big mass of drones that slowly moves forward leaving a translucent trail that stays still in the shadow of the nebulous mist that surrounds it. Exit takes the listener on another journey into Dark Ambient with a smooth minimalist movement that leaves these medium-light threads that are like cosmic fireflies. As beautiful to hear as to see! My ears perceive footsteps, a bit like Paul Shirshin turning his heels to venture into another electronic odyssey.
A cosmic journey full of nuances, this first album of Cosmic Replicant on Synphaera is above all for the aficionados of Dark Ambient music with a penchant for Cosmic vibes which is well depicted in THE WAVES. As mentioned above, I especially liked the rhythmic section of this album and its claustrophobic but very enveloping environment.
Sylvain Lupari (September 13th, 2021) ***½**
Available at Exosphere Bandcamp