“This first cd of the Belgian duo fulfills its complex mandate with accuracy”
1 Life inside the HL-LHC 12:12
2 Cyclotron 11:31
3 Exotic Particles 10:20
4 Through the Electron Clouds 17:05
5 Organised CHAOS goes out of Control 7:17
6 The Acceleration 14:49
(CD-R/DDL 73:16) (V.F.)
(Progressive Berlin School)
Fusion of Elements is a new duo in the SynGate team that puts together the classic EM style of Syndromeda with the more exploratory but fundamentally melodic vision of Sensory++. Danny Budts and Joost Egelie team up to set into music the tumbling and chaotic elements of the world's largest and most powerful Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A challenge that seems to me to be up to the two musicians who explore both the harmonic aspects, for Joost Egelie, and the dramatic aspects, for Danny Budts, of such a collision. SESSIONS IN THE QUANTUM FIELD hits the subject aimed with a creativity that is matched only by the immense talent of the two Belgian musicians.
A strong storm scatters its woosshh lines in a sound firmament where an old organ wave digs the grooves to bring them to our ears. Weird as usual noises adorn this atmospheric opening of Life inside the HL-LHC which continues with an amplification effect that could have the strength to puncture a hole in a tympanic mucosa. The force of these winds reaches a zenith around the 5th minute where our ears guess a barren land abandoned to the effects of magmatic explosions that our two musician friends must contain by drawing our attention to an oscillatory movement. Organic tones stick to this ballet for undulating waves which seems to charm this impassive layer of chthonic voices. Another movement, bigger, heavier and strongly resonant takes hold of the ambiences and whips the rhythm for a solid rhythmic ride towards a burning zone. A walking magma whose grip was illusory, considering this animated cavalcade that returns to this form of tightly knitted oscillations running at full throttle under monstrous synth solos. Cyclotron offers a melodic rhythm anchored in its minimalist state. The pattern rises and falls with arpeggios tinkling like panicked twigs in a static zone, overshadowed by a dense blanket of absent voices, muffled explosions and various electronic effects borrowed from the analog years. Driven by a bass line, Cyclotron moves forward slyly, displaying more velocity and creating a good melodic option that rolls and undulates in the shadow of this movement that seemed so innocuous. A good ambient Berlin School that ejects some nice solos in a final stretching two minutes of atmospheric phase. Exotic Particles also needs its good 5 minutes to get the sound particles out of the synths and sequencers before sculpting a good analog rhythm, very Edgar Froese by the way, a little before the 6th minute. I say rhythm, as I could also say a spasmodic electronic choreography ideal for laying down Middle Eastern tunes. A great moment that is too short and fades out in a melancholic phase with a synth that refuses to give up its tunes.
The sweetness of this finale finds its bearings in the opening of Through the Electron Clouds. This slow and long opening, we are talking about 7 minutes, is on the other hand very musical with a synthesized song that we guess and that circulates like an azure ode in an analog heat. A good opening which gives birth to an eruption from the sequencer which multiplies its lines of rhythmic melodies galloping in ascending loops. Percussion adds a more animated touch around the 11th minute, creating that perfect illusion of a flickering strobe rhythm drifting under superb synth solos. Through the Electron Clouds! A huge track from start to end. Organised CHAOS goes out of Control has this heavy mandate to succeed it. And its approach brings us back to the dramatic illusion that covered our perception since the beginning of SESSIONS IN THE QUANTUM FIELD. The piano has a nostalgic heaviness, a bit like that pianist alone under a sky ravaged by a nuclear accident. It has the same haunting, like the same fear. The effect is surreal with a good dose of Blade Runner in the ambiences, especially in the second half of the track. The opening of The Acceleration blows hot and cold by sharing its first 8 minutes with ambiences as soft and musical like in Through the Electron Clouds to arid and gnawed breaths of ochre dust, which sometimes last a little too long, like in Life inside the HL-LHC. The rhythm that comes out around the 8th minute is one of the most beautiful here. As much for its violence than for the dribbling of its keys as for its percussive sound effects that chew our eardrums nicely. A rhythm which dies a little too quickly to make us hear in counterpart a beautiful mesh of keyboard and synth in a Vangelis finale.
SESSIONS IN THE QUANTUM FIELD is an album in two parts. One that is easily tamed and another that is more complex and requires a few listens. Presented in 24 Bits download, this first cd of Fusion of Elements fulfills its complex mandate with accuracy. Dark, ethereal and harmonious with unique rhythmic sections, SESSIONS IN THE QUANTUM FIELD will surely find its place in the list of the best achievements in 2021. If only for Through the Electron Clouds which is one of the most beautiful long tracks I've heard lately!
Sylvain Lupari (May 8th, 2021) ****½*
Available at SynGate Bandcamp