“25 CD's later, I still don't have enough of Indra's music which is a wonder of minimalist art with great sequencing pattern and its share of melodious acts”
CD 25
1 The Quest for Nemo 12:51
2 Lexicon 10:51
3 Chill Book 21:38
4 Endorsement 17:14
5 So Long, Time Will Tell 8:51
Indra Music (CD/DDL 71:28)
(Roumanian & Berlin Schools)
There we are! The marvelous adventure of Indra's Archives series ends here. And not in any way possible! PLATINUM FIVE offers a wide variety of genres that the Romanian musician has developed over the years. Another good album while my ears still feast on Platinum Four.
The Quest for Nemo surprises with an astonishing structure of a fluid Berlin School. Behind an armada of wind effects coming from all over hides a frame of rhythm of the Stranger Things genre whose harmonic portion is oversized with somewhat anarchic chords that dance in the opposite of the winds' directions. It's a great Berlin School with a good nod to the structures of Tangerine Dream, in a more contemporary envelope. I like! If the structure of The Quest for Nemo is flowing, the one of Lexicon offers is a kind of break-dance with percussive typist which spray with bullets a spasmodic structure. The harmonic portion is proposed by a synth with songs that follow the structural tangent of Lexicon. Synthia covers these rhythmic clashes of her voice forged in the interstices of the synth where is a basin of chloroform, while layers of more chthonic voices come and go in this rhythmic scenery of the 90-00. For this last CD of this huge collection of archives, Indra has not forgotten the minimalist music lovers of the Roumanian School with Chill Book. The pace sets in soon enough. Chasing the mystical fogs of EM, it's built on jolts more vivid than in Lexicon. Fascinating tones in the percussive sequences, they seem to be constantly out of breath, and sequences with random jumps forge both the rhythm structure and the harmonic one. The movement goes through an atmospheric phase full of haze of lost sequences before returning with a more spasmodic vision. Or a stroboscopic one. The sequences are the heart of Chill Book's charms.
Endorsement is a very violent title that handles very well our desire in sounds and rhythms. A furious line of oscillations hops with force in its introduction. These loops forge a line of spasmodic rhythm, like 1000 one-legged that are jumping on a line of fire! There is a lot of nuance in these bombardments of oscillation loops whose tone matches the velocity, like a sensation of changes of speed between its descents and its ascent. A big siren howls, giving more weight to this tonal aggression. The percussion, however, modifies the course of the sonic storm by reorienting it towards a morphic trance. That's the beginning of the enchantment! The sound of the percussions plays to flirt with a form of echo built in round wood while the oscillations take a little bit this rhythm, less quick to mention, of Pink Floyd's On the Run. The nuances in the rhythm and in the tones of the sequencer, as well as the oscillations and the percussions play alternately with the appetite of my sense of hearing with an Indra in full shape who also deepens the range of the resonances of its percussive elements. It is necessary to pay attention because sometimes, certain percussions imitate a flight of palmipeds or the effects of resonance of crossbows. Attractive and intriguing, they magnetize the panorama of Endorsement so much that we forget that a melody has already formed and also plays with these little pleasures attached to the permutation of tones as to an injection of emotions with these arrangements that come dance with that goose bumps that keep hurting me. The next step is an introduction in a more energized phase that brings us to the big EDM galvanized by this concern for details from Indra. One last big track before So Long, Time Will Tell. Does this title carry a pessimistic message? Time will tell. But in the meantime, it's a Halloween-style ritornello that is programmed on a rhythm structure that grows with a bunch of strange and singular sound effects. Like a magician who leaves the stage under explosions to divert our attention to what could be a final lap.
Indra leaves a big legacy to his fans with this series of 25 albums listed in 5 sections; Ruby, Emerald, Gold, Diamond and Platinum. There are several jewels in this huge chest while some albums require a greater openness. In short, hours of enchantments and rediscoveries. As on this PLATINUM FIVE while the perfumes of albums 3 and especially 4 still aromatize my ears. Thank you, Indra, by hoping for a new thing soon ...
Sylvain Lupari (July 23rd, 2019) ***½**
Available at Indra's Bandcamp