“EC12 is a great sonic document of Boddy/Wollo's performance of Frontiers played at the Circus Festival V”
1 Spindrift 12:01 2 Apfelbaum 7:35 3 Prime Blue 8:04 4 Vista 5:42 5 Trek 7:01 6 Undergrowth 4:24 7 Steppe 6:42 8 Migration 4:12 9 Reverie 4:35 10 Searching 6:53 11 Ascension 5:04 12 Frontiers 6:42 DiN | DLL16 (DLL 79:21) (V.F.)
(Ambient Berlin School)
The Martenot waves, sculptured by Ian Boddy, mixed to the daydreamer lines of guitars, embroidered by Erik Wollo's magical hands, had totally seduced the ears of those who loved this union of those delicate Berlin School rhythms to the panoramic visions of the Scandinavian lands. The album Frontiers had exceeded its borders with a rare elegance for a duet of which the certain affinities are meeting nevertheless in styles devilishly opposed. Recorded live during the 5th Circus Festival in Germany on September 2012, EC12 proposes a version slightly modified of Frontiers (the order of the tracks is different, the moments of atmospheres are slightly shortened and the very floating Shelter is ignored) to which the duo has added around thirty of additional and totally new music which rests completely on the basis of Frontiers.
It's in winds blown of cold and heat that Spindrift extricates itself of our loudspeakers. We recognize straightaway the Norwegian breezes of the studio album with this poetic texture where winds sing and float in dreamy horizons. We hear some carillons ring far off, like dusts of prisms came to sing with these winds, as we perceive also a delicate line of sequences forging a soft ghostly rhythm which crackles slowly under this thick cloud of breezes and multicolored prisms. Hesitating, this rhythm is advised by a bass line which snores lazily while that quite slowly the percussions wake up. The strikings are fluttering around as much as cymbals in the gurglings more felt of a bass line filled by organic fragrances, guiding so Spindrift towards a steady, a lively rhythm which skips and vibrates under the caresses and the bites of Wollo's six-strings. The harmonies are paradisiacal. We close our eyes and we imagine to be on an island to think of our wounds while quite slowly Spindrift gets lost in the vapors of Boddy's Martenot waves before taking back its rhythmic crusade flooded of solos so angelic from Erik Wollo. This is great and this starts this concert on the right foot. Apfelbaum proposes a more ambient structure where the lines of synths and guitars merge into a strange floating ballet. The sequences which ring in the background forge a rhythm which swirls lazily under the envelopes of the Martenot waves. I hear this furtive rhythm which swirls weakly of Tangerine Dream in Underwater Sunlight. The difference, and it's enormous, is these Martenot clouds which float and draw elongated ink stains of which the howling streaks remain impregnated in emptiness. It's especially very mesmerizing, very enveloping. After an introduction where stroller arpeggios drag their fragmented harmonies in industrial thunders and mechanical rollings (Blade Runner?) Prime Blue bites into the bait of a lively structure of rhythm. An up-tempo which roll like a train on rails of wadding. A rhythm between the fury of Frontiers' title-track and of Steppe, but with a guitar which mixes its delicious solo and its mordant riffs with the very poetic moods of these arpeggios suspended in Ian Boddy's vapors and solos. But whereas I put your eyes in appetite with a review, there is a very beautiful video of these three tracks performed during Circus Festival V;
The remainder of EC12 is Frontiers superbly performed.
Sylvain Lupari (April 5th, 2014) ****½*
Available on DiN Bandcamp