“Much more lyrical, on the verge of romanticism, Diamond Two is another inescapable for the fans of Indra”
1 Leprechauns 10:44 2 Bellphonique 18:07 3 Through the Stars 13:34 4 From Dusk till Dawn 8:17 5 A Hint for Meditation 22:52 Indra Music
(CD/DDL 73:36) (V.F.) (Berlin & Roumanian School)
Let's continue without waiting to write about Indra's huge collection of EM with CD 17. Scents of guitar, in mode wandering and nostalgic cosmic blues, lamentations of flutes or of seraphic saxophones and chords of keyboard ringing as a remorseful melody, Leprechauns carries its bag of ill-assorted tones in foggy and meditative layers. Among these elements, a very short harmonious structure gets loose and glitters like crystal drops falling on a cosmic bridge of glass in a minimalist movement that Indra decorates carefully. Discreet pulsations stretch a rhythmic aura which melt in this soundscape where laments and twinkling prisms are the flavor of the month in this 2nd album of the Diamond section. And this meditative approach of Leprechauns is a good indication of what waits for the fans of the Romanian synthesist through the 5 structures of DIAMOND TWO. But the exceptions are there to feed the parallels. Isn't it so? If Leprechauns is charmingly ambient, Bellphonique bites our eardrums and makes vibrate our loudspeakers with a waving structure of which the flow is much faster than its beating. To say the least! The rhythm is crazy. Non danceable! The pot of sequences shakes its keys in all directions in a furious rhythmic structure to which are grafted impulses of dramatic percussions and nice organic effects as well as more bright sequences. By the way, their sparkling tones forge these structures of unfinished melodies which roam around the 73 minutes of this album. Percussive effects as well as of video games and wall of winds add weight to the music, but not as much as these percussions which hit the movement a little before the point of 9 minutes and introduce a very Trance approach. And there, that dances better! But the ears … Phew! It's better to listen to without earphones. But then again, the neighbors …
Through the Stars says what it says. It's about a morphic ballad with nice orchestrations that are going to remind to some of you the aerial music of John Serrie. Indra cheeks with the depth of his strata which slide with light dramatic impulses in the movement. Isolated sequences feign cosmic rodeos in the 2nd half of Through the Stars, bringing a delicious effect of life in a title which flirts constantly with the borders of the lunar landscapes. After this good meditative interlude, From Dusk till Dawn puts down a delicate structure of rhythm between our ears. It's an ambient tempo with sequences and their shadows, as much sizzling than harmonious, which skip and gambol with a delicious anarchy in the multiple echoes of their reverberations. Faithful to his EDM signature, Indra shakes a little the moods by adding percussions which liven up a little more the life of From Dusk till Dawn in a 2nd part that one dances like a cosmic cha-cha-cha. It's a very good track which does marvellously well its transition ambient versus mid-tempo. And always these crystalline tones which ring and ring … With a title like that A Hint for Meditation doesn't really need a description. Maybe just a little bit to explain that the structure articulates around an armada of sequences the imperfect circles of which become entangled in a surprising harmonious and slightly rhythmic symbiosis. Here, like everywhere in DIAMOND TWO, these gleaming tones of the sequenced arpeggios forge attractive ritornellos of which the echoes scrawl an appearance of floating rhythm. And these tones are very heterogeneous. We can hear those organic ones as others cosmic or parasitic. And the fusions weave harmonious patterns always in continual movements, from where these forms of ghostly rhythms. The outcome is incredibly ear-catching. And this emergent homogeneity of the tones makes of this DIAMOND TWO another inescapable for the fans of the Rumanian magician of synthesizers. As for A Hint for Meditation, the layers blow drowsy potions which bolt us to our meditative state.
Sylvain Lupari (December 23rd, 2017) **** ½*
Available at Indra Bandcamp