“Javi Canovas concocts another very good opus which finds its way through all available mysterious cerebral meanders”
1 Psychedelic Voyage 18:20
2 Mechanic Spirit 18:02
3 Into the Sylence 3:57
4 Sundown 27:13
(CD-R/ DDL 67:32) (V.F.)
(Psychedelic Berlin School)
At the beginning 2012 Javi Canovas had amazed the small circle of EM with an album (Transfiguration) that plunged us in full heart of the psychedelico-cosmic frenzies of the Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Neuronium vintages years. With its 3 long titles with introductions of blue mists and its rhythmic phases of which the slow evolutions end into hypnotic minimalist structures, PSYCHEDELIC VOYAGE pursues this quest undertaken with his accomplice David Parades (23fish) on the album Unforgiven Machine where the atmospheres and the music found root into imaginations fed by strange substances.
It’s in a thick cloud of cosmic particles that the intro of Psychedelic Voyage begins our journey into the very psychedelic states of Javi Canovas' 11th opus. Allegorical twists in tones of cold sirens are snaking in all directions a wall of stigmatized drizzle whereas that quirky tones and echoing fuzz are squabbling these moments of hallucinogenic frenzies. This cerebral spasm sinks into a thick angelic fog which dissipates little by little when the first sequenced pulsations emerge with fright at around the 6th minute point. The rhythm zigzags shyly under the eye of a synth which scatters its abstruse breaths with mixed tones under a tempo which grows ceaselessly before becoming heavy. A feminine voice comes to caress our hearing while Canovas exploits his fine and tortuous solos which decorate a rhythm became wiser. The smoke intro of Mechanic Spirit is shorter than on Psychedelic Voyage while the rhythmic approach is sharply more incisive. On this title the Spanish synthesist brings us downright in the years of Tangerine Dream's Phaedra with a very good mellotron fluty line which floats above the keys of a sequencer which mould an undisciplined rhythm. The chords of a sober guitar come to ennoble this rhythm which little by little gets dissociate of its Cartesian approach to arches itself and hiccups of curt spasms which pounce with crash in a heavily metallic ambience. Like a steel ballet Mechanic Spirit swirls in infinite minimalist loops, revealing its sequenced ions which try to hang on to the discreet amber vapors of synths and to this flute which had avoided it since its opening.
After the delicate dance of dreams drawn by a the soft piano and the enchanting flute of Into the Sylence, Sundown propels us in the much more audacious phases of PSYCHEDELIC VOYAGE where evanescent atmospheres and rhythms are interconnect to a structure which borrows more the paths of a progressive cosmic rock à la RMI than the psychedelico-cosmic wanderings of the vintage electronic years. More ethereal, the intro frees soft synth clouds which undulate thoughtfully. Sequences emerge from this lethal fog a little after the 4th minute. Waddling of a fast pace they draw a circular movement which skips of its symmetric arrhythmia under the charms of a divine mellotron flute while a guitar sprinkles its uncertain chords on a structure which swims in its perpetual duality. In fact, Sundown is a long climbing with rest areas. The rhythmic passages are tremulous and molded on nervous sequences which skip such as a herd of mislaid sheeps, while heavy impulses of a synth which puts its Redshift clothes draw aggressive curves and kicks away captivating mists that a guitar is wrapping up of shuddering riffs and of scattered solos.
There are intense moments on this track which vanished like it had hatched in oched mists. Sat comfortably on a musical approach with infinite possibilities, Javi Canovas concocts another good opus which find its way through all available mysterious cerebral meanders. PSYCHEDELIC VOYAGE is an album which swims in a Berlin School style to progressive and experimental roots. A little like the excellent Metamorphosis, but with an even more audacious approach.
Sylvain Lupari (October 9th, 2012) *****