“You have to stick your 2 ears deeply in the moods of Future City to appreciate all of its charms. And charms it does have plenty”
1 Search for the Future City 3:29 2 Dawn over Future City 7:04 3 Chinese Dragon 7:41 4 Monsoon Player 2:45 5 Dragonfly 6:17 6 Afternoon in a Bar 4:50 7 Night under the Bridge 3:51 8 Cosmonautica - The Moon Landing 6:41 9 Exit from the Future City 1:21 Generator Pl | GEN CD 033
(CD 44:28) (V.F.) (Ambient, theatrical, futuristic EM)
A reverberating wave growing in breezes with sweet oriental scents courts our ears. We hear footsteps echoing in the soft orchestrations and synth lines floating like metal feathers in the winds of solitude. Sweet and melancholy, Search for the Future City is the gateway, which closes quite brutally, on a fascinating album which seems to have been extracted from reminiscences of an equally fascinating album by Vangelis; The City. The approach and the structures of FUTURE CITY are very ambiospherical and rather ambiosonical. The music roams in the background. Over the atmospheres of futuristic (?) city where the inherent noises resound through some dense layers to the tones very near Vangelis. A little too much maybe!
Dawn over Future City will be our first crush of an album which is really necessary to dig deeply into it in order to appreciate it at its true value. The rhythm is at the same time very sensual like a bit uncomfortable with synth layers perfumed of old cabalistic organ tones which dives into a slow down-tempo carbonized by spectral synth waves. Every dive awakens a thick cloud of quirky noises which make contrast to the evanescent harmonies spat by a kind of oriental guitar. The scents of East are perfuming a large part of the album, like on the lively rhythm of Chinese Dragon which seems to have been taken from the China sessions, still by Vangelis. If at the beginning we find it as much cold than aggressive, one would say violent knock of scissor cutting out a metallic silk sheet, we eventually succumb to the musicality of the harmonies, always ethereal, coming from a nasal synth, as well as in this soft little allegorical ballet which feeds its middle part. Monsoon Player is rather ambient with a kyoto which reminds Fishing Junks at Sunset from Jean-Michel Jarre's Concerts in China. Moreover, the promotion around FUTURE CITY is strongly centered on this mixture of oriental and futuristic music which is situated between the music of Vangelis and Jarre. Except that the imprints of Vangelis are more present and almost everywhere. After the very beautiful oriental dance that is Dragonfly, I hear the jerky voices of Heaven and Hell here and there, Afternoon in a Bar bewitches us with its very beautiful approach of jazz-lounge (one would say Henry Mancini). The very pensive chords which escape from the introduction of Night under the Bridge shine like the reflections of an announced disaster. The noises of the civilization are secret, even sinister. And the percussions which thunder make roll apocalyptic airs that a synth tries to conceal with sibylline songs. The rhythm is static and the harmonies drag it in a somber spheroidal symphony. We approach the end. And this end is tinted with a vision which is not very reassuring. The synth waves which float like in Search for the Future City wrap voices samplings of the NASA, while that Cosmonautica - The Moon Landing congeals its musicality in a slow arrhythmic movement which is lifted by wrapping synth lines and superb orchestrations which cover up the crystal tears. Never Vangelis will have sound as real as here! I hear a mixture of 1492 and Chariots of Fire. Exit from the Future City doesn't really need a presentation. We hear downright what that means!
It's really necessary to put your ears inside in order to appreciate FUTURE CITY. And Lunar Synth doesn't facilitate its taming with a brochette of rhythms which sound like the carbon of ambient rhythms and an avalanche of ambiences which are in contradiction throughout the 45 minutes of this album. And at the end, it is what makes the wealth of a work which is imperatively necessary to discover wrapped up well by a pair of earphones…or in a quiet setting, the sound at a high level. I quite enjoyed it, but I had to dive deep there. But I really do believe that the fans of Vangelis and of his surrealistic futuristic moods will be delighted by this album.
Sylvain Lupari (November 7th, 2014) *****
Available at Generator pl