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Writer's pictureSylvain Lupari

INDRA: Archives-Diamond Four (2016)

“This Diamond Four should have hit the CD market as being an official album of Indra so much the tone and especially the quality of the 4 tracks are top notch”

1 Hephaestus 11:32 2 A New Orbital 18:13 3 Prime Sounds 17:01 4 Derivates 26:17 Indra Music

(CD/DDL 73:06) (V.F.) (Roumanian School)

In my humble opinion, DIAMOND FOUR should have been considered as being an official album. As being a part of the Tantric Celebration series, so much the tone and especially the quality of the 4 tracks are solid in all points of view. What knocks the most when our ears get literally seduced, and the word is weak, by this train cheerful of rhythm that is Hephaestus is its tone. We are far, very far even, of some music leftovers ignored in the vault of Indra's recordings. And if it's truly the case, it just makes amplifies even more all these qualifiers of harmonist and sculptor of hypnotic rhythms that mark out his impressive route.

Like a long skeleton of a train without wagons crossing plains and mountains with musician acrobats on board, the rhythm of Hephaestus is forged on a continuous movement of the sequencer which breathes like a train rolling at middle speed. On board, we find sculptors of sounds and bells which make tinkle their treasures, as well as cosmonauts who reveal the sound mysteries of the cosmos. There is a room for a percussionist who makes tumble down the strikes of his drum from time to time. The envelope is astral, and the sequences pile up on this syncopated line of rhythm and of which the hatched flow is embraced by harmonious effects scattered on this structure which arises resolutely from a rhythmic DNA of Klaus Schulze. A New Orbital follows with an introduction cuddled by an intense cloudiness as astral as sibylline. Waves of tones which pierce the eardrums break out and heckle in a decor of ambient elements which is not inevitably a phase of meditation. A dark wave comes and lays down a shroud of sorrow and its reverberating effects collide the gate of these waves of tones, crumbling down some muffled pulsations which structure quietly the minimalist rhythm of A New Orbital. This phase is very bewitching, and Indra waters it abundantly with synth and percussive effects while freeing some bells which tinkle harmonies as so occult than these layers which persist in coating this title of an esoteric envelope. There are some nuances in the beatings of the percussions, sharpening even more the concentration of our ears which meet a real angelic phase around the 12th minute. And for the rest, the structure remains the same while the décor evolves in subtlety up until that A New Orbital is brought back to the elements of its introduction.

Prime Sounds doesn't waste time and presents a rhythmic structure based on a movement of alternation of the sequencer which stigmatizes a fluid movement of the tam-tams. A synth releases some fluty harmonies while the rhythm spreads out its magic with stereo effects which sound like a surge of ducks of which the echo of the wings surfing near waters crosses well beyond the peace of mind of the lake. Arrhythmic, the tempo plays enormously with its nuances to magnetize well our attention when the circular movement becomes rather a hatched flow. In brief, it's the art of the atypical minimalism with the arrival of sober percussions that gives more heaviness to this slow Techno for wandering Zombies whereas the synth multiplies effects and fragments of harmonies. These harmonies are as numerous as diversified, even that some whistle a sniggering recurring melody by adopting the shape of these leaves which fall to the ground when their roots are weakened by the autumn, and others melt themselves in the shimmering tinkled of the other tones of sequences. We can also hear the crumpling of some sequences and the ornaments of the synth which also abound with an ear-catchy electronic lexicon. Derivates is the cornerstone of this DIAMOND FOUR. And not because of its length, but rather because of its tonal wealth. The 1st line of rhythm is knotted around spasms and the rollings of a sequencer movement which frees a too big horde of sequences so to maintain a coherent rhythmic approach here. Banging resound over the multiple capers of sequences, while the synth abounds in tones and in effects which compete with the boldness of the sequencer. One would say that's free improvisation for two synths and two sequencers. Anesthetic mists surround this spasmodic approach which fades out for a good phase of ambient music with a very beautiful synth which scatters its mists and its soft evasive harmonies in a decor where sonic bat graze our apathetic state. Still here, the fragrances of a Klaus Schulze roaming in the cosmos embalm our ears. We are already far in the title, in the 15th minute, when the mists dissipating let hatch a phase of soberer rhythm with old percussions-boxes which lost a little of static charm in very good lunar orchestrations. The fans of ambient Berlin School will be in heaven here. And little by little, the tremulous skeleton of an electronic rhythm returns towards the base of Derivates, but with more precision and more percussive effects, concluding a great opus, too beautiful to have so been ignored, from Indra.

Sylvain Lupari (March 8th, 2018) ****½*

Available on Indra's Bandcamp

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