LENSFLARE: Sonic Architecture (2018)

“The landscapes here are constantly changing while stimulating a listening that will reveal beautiful things if we have this penchant for an electronic music more exploratory”

1 Cycling 12:31

2 Through 13:42

3 Infected 11:00

4 Waves 11:08

Lensflare Music

(DDL 48:23) (V.F.)

(Vintage Berlin School)

A synth pad with unfinished harmonies rise to infiltrate our ears with an equatorial tone. Other layers fuse with the same warmth and idleness, giving Cycling an opening of ambiences where the fine granular side of the mist adds an esoteric touch. Built around 4 tracks that explore the ambient character of electronic music, SONIC ARCHICTECTURE represents quite well the meaning and depth of Lensflare's 3rd opus to be released in 2018. A sequencer movement sculpts a galloping rhythm. A rhythm that flies behind a heavy mass of layers and some decorative lines drawn by a synth that flirts with a psychedelic approach. Nervous and yet fiery, this rhythm drawn from the coat of arms of Tangerine Dream unfolds a jerky pattern that hops on the spot behind the effects of gurgling water before breaking and thus to release a brighter line that whirls with a choir coming from nowhere. The velocity of the rhythm is still stifled in the background while the effects and the sound mass negate the seraphic chants to guide Cycling towards its last beats. Through, as well as Infected, are built on the same bases, either be long introductions of ambient phases coated of a more psychedelic approach of synths. Delicious with its layers floating in a pool of breaths, breezes and tears of a synth in mode; making cry sheets of twisted metals, the opening of Through projects me into the world of Chronos, strange tones in less. I hear mocking whispers behind this sonic placenta from which will emerge a nice oscillating line that will add more brightness to the second part of Cycling. Cosmic ambiances that extends a heavy cloak of sounds in a celestial corridor, Infected isn't really far from the vision of its title. Its introduction does very Klaus Schulze of analog years with good effects which come and go like waves in an ocean without bottom nor structure. The movement of the sequencer awakens around the 5th minute by making gallop its keys which are running in all directions, while structuring a probable mainline of an atypical rhythm. Here again, the effects and the sluggish tablecloths that whirl around like a tornado to be born stifle a structure of rhythm while espousing its form. These effects grow with a clear intensity that reaches its climax in a final where the rhythm was lost somewhere. The arcs of sounds that float with a slight movement of surf or reverberations in the curves are at the heart of the peaceful journey of Waves. The sequencer's movement sculpts a rhythm jumping with a harmonious stroboscopic thin line in a setting where the sound effects of sci-fi and of aurora borealis intersect their elements in a geo-sonic storm. The sky clears up by good moments, revealing a more harmonic sequencer movement flowing in a more ethereal phase. And like the other 3 structures in SONIC ARCHICTECTURE, the landscapes are constantly changing with their differences, light or enormous, while stimulating a listening that will reveal beautiful things if we have this penchant for an electronic music more exploratory, even more experimental, with some good fragrances of Klaus Schulze, for the ambiences, and Tangerine Dream, for the evolutions of the sequenced rhythms. The psychedelic side comes from the different shades and sonic architectures of Andrea Lensflare Debbi who seems inspired by the Ohr period of the 70's. Sylvain Lupari (August 25th, 2018) ***½** SynthSequences.com Available on Lensflare's Bandcamp