“It's more a progressive work than purely EM that requires a few listenings and each of them brings out a passage formerly misunderstood”
1 Planetary System 8:15
2 Sunscape 7:35
3 Colourscape 5:57
4 Mountainscape 5:00
5 New Horizon - medley 8:53
6 Moonscape 5:18
7 Mindscape 4:25
8 Gemstones Part 1 (Genesis) 3:33
9 Gemstones Part 2 (Growth) 4:50
10 Gemstones Part 3 6:41
DVD Satzvey Castle 2005 21:19
(CD/DVD 81:49) (V.F.)
(Progressive EM)
Deep Imagination is the musical complement to Art Of Infinity from Thorsten Sudler-Mainz and Thorsten Rentsch. If one is offering ambient and spatial music with a more progressive touch, Deep Imagination is more electronic but still retains this progressive core that sets it apart from a conventional EM. For a second opus of the band, GEMSTONES offers a collection of titles played in concert and some remixes of the 1st CD, Scapes released in 2005, as well as 2 new titles (Planetary System and Gemstones) which narrows the styles' barrier between the 2 projects of the German duo.
A heavy reverberation gets fragmented into sequenced electronic pulses, initiating a tempo of finely syncopated tremors. Behind a variegated and very electronic structure, Planetary System managed to release a melodious approach wandering in a cosmos where the stars sparkle with crystalline effects and arpeggios. These elements harmoniously wind a dark and lethal universe. We are getting into the hovering world of GEMSTONES with Sunscape. The movement floats on bass pulsations while a drifting synth envelops us in a vaporous atmosphere. Flirting with a psychedelic vision, the musical prisms sparkle between the inconsistent dialogue of the random percussions. Colourscape offers a nervous sequenced rhythm which deviates on a more airy, even funky, structure before concluding on a more ambient phase, where the waves of a floating synth cross the nostalgic breezes of a lonely saxophone This sweet romantic phase continues with Mountainscape. It's a dense and enveloping title which delicately waltzes on a harmonious synth crying on melancholic chords. Touching space music whose nostalgic breaths soak in an ambience very close to Pink Floyd on Wish you Where Here, like in Moonscape and Mindscape. The introduction of New Horizon offers this same structure, except that the title comes lively in the second part with fine pulses whose echoes follow the rhythm imposed by good percussions which hammer a sensual tempo. The Gemstones trilogy begins with a heavy electronic croaking whose reverberations die in a cavernous ambience. Sequenced pulses animate this strange underground world with sound stalactites. Hypnotic rhythm without harmonies modifies its melodious approach with the coming Gemstones Part 2 (Growth). We bathe in the harmoniously cold world of Robert Schroëder here with ethereal choirs as well as fluid and limpid sequences which are wrapped in a synth with circular veils and a saxophone always alone in its world of melancholy. The third part nuances its melodious approach in order to gradually hide in an ambient sphere where everything converges towards a vaporous and mysterious universe, thanks to beautiful mellotron synths.
GEMSTONES is not only pure EM. It's a progressive album that make an intersting blend bewteen prog and Berlin School style. It also requires a few listenings and each of them brings out a passage formerly misunderstood of an album which is teeming of pretty good surprises. A good progressive EM album where the melody enchants the nebulous ambiences. Now, this comes with a DVD of about twenty minutes which presents an animated version of a psychedelic life of Planetary System and an extract from the group in concert (Colourscape and Mountainscape) at Satzvey Castle in 2005.
Sylvain Lupari (March 27th, 2008) ****¼*
Available at SynGate Records Shop