"This is a stylistic album designed for sequential approaches where retro Berlin School reborns under another shape"
1 Hypnosis Room 14:01
2 Transfiguration 15:20
3 Way to Unknown Place 14:00
4 The Slot 17:04
5 Projection 11:55
(DDL 72:20) (V.F.)
(Berlin School)
Through good times and bad, Javi Canovas comes back haunting our ears with a powerful album inspired by the electronic sequenced works from the retro Berlin School. With intros and finales paralyzed by smog of synth as corrosives as threatening and its evolutionary rhythms filled by knocks of sequenced steroids, TRANSFIGURATION is forged in the reminiscences of those golden years where Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze reigned as absolute masters on the intends of the Berlin School.
Hypnosis Room initiates this very beautiful album with an oblong and dark synth layer with tones of an organ of darkness which extends its threatening caustic veil. The first 3 minutes are floating and enveloping with sinuous synth waves which agglutinate to form a sky opacified of resonant layers. A sequence emerges when the iodine breaths die off. It undulates with large circles, bringing a cloud of smoke which overhangs a rhythm which increases of heaviness. Another sequence unfolds. It's tied to the heavy rhythm with clearer chords, drawing the outlines of a fine sequenced melody which rolls under iridescent synth breaths. The rhythm is joined by another sequenced movement whose more resonant keys let transpire a brief reverberating trickle that a delicate flute envelops in a melodious approach. Gradually the sequenced train that supported the structure of Hypnosis Room runs out of steam to get lost in a cloud of synth layers as intriguing and menacing as its introduction. This pattern of introduction and finale with a thousand floating tones nourished the 5 titles of TRANSFIGURATION. Thus, the title-track penetrates our ears through a juxtaposition of reverberating synth waves to which are joined fluty breaths and hoops which collide leaving their echoes to join a pool of sounds which is reminiscent of the metallic ambiences of Tangerine Dream on No Man's Land. A superb sequence emerges from this morphic grip a little before the 6th minute. It skips, releasing keys which multiply their rhythmic incoherence and their resonant tones on a heavy circular rhythm that howling synth breaths envelop in a stagnant madness. The rhythm spits out unruly chords which trample and throb with frenzy under fleeting synth layers, bringing this furious rhythm towards the sweetness of a more oneiric ending. After an intro woven into the cold breaths of Klaus Schulze's years of ether, Way to Unknown Place explodes with a line that lets slip sequences with intersecting palpitations. The rhythm is explosive and oscillates with fervor on a canvas of sequences whose variable strikes merge a chaotic rhythm to a melody with a cyclic refrain which rolls in loop on this spasmodic rhythm.
The dizzying breaths that introduce The Slot whistle above our heads as if we were near a Formula 1 racing track. Subtle modulations bring fine variances to this other atmospheric intro which chimes its 5:36 with a good idle creativity. A sequence comes out and disperses its ambient clouds, setting the parameters for a first rhythmic approach which sparkles under good synth solos. The movement follows another tangent a little after the 9 minutes. Heavier, the rhythm storms under round sequences which resonate with a rhythm with wide oscillating loops accompanied by weak clicks of cymbals. An envelope of mist covers the beginning while the synth takes all the place to release juicy solos which encircle and overhang a rhythm of lead with resonant kicks. And the sequences fuse from all sides, initiating snatches of rhythms that tie in with the jolts of the main movement, while gradually this heavy sequenced storm dies out in the arid breaths of an atmospheric finale. The sequenced approach of Projection is even more furious with keys stamping on good rotating curves, multiplying their strikes which spin like the propellers of a helicopter under suave solos with the perfumes of Edgar Froese.
Surprised by this other Javi Canovas album? Not really! In solo, the Spanish synthesist has accustomed us to albums stuffed with furious sequences which leap from all sides, forming rhythms in constant permutations. TRANSFIGURATION is an exercise in style for sequenced approaches. Inserted between silky cosmic, oneiric and experimental parentheses, the rhythms of this 10th album by Javi Canovas bubble on polymorphous patterns. It's brilliant mix of power and atmospheres where retro Berlin School is reborn in another shape.
Sylvain Lupari (May 14th, 2012) ***¾**
Disponible au Javi Canovas Bandcamp