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Writer's pictureSylvain Lupari

M3nash Die Loreley (2021)

Updated: Aug 18, 2023

You like works and poetic musical stories? Here is one for you!

1 Oceanides Ouvertüre 7:01

2 Undine 4:32

3 Mystische Melodie 6:09

4 Nocturne 7:42

5 Regen (feat) 9:01

6 Ruhe/Weinend 6:21

7 Träumerei 3:29

8 Reflex (Bonus Track) 2:32

(DDL 46:49) (V.F.)

(Soundscapes, OST, Ambient Orchestral)

You like works and poetic musical stories? Here is one for you! According to legend, Loreley is a beautiful virgin girl who sits on the rock of the same name above the Rhine. She sings divinely and her hypnotic voice spellbinds all the sailors passing by this height of the Rhine. Bewitched, the latter, not knowing the curse, get lost and are shipwrecked. None were found. Beautiful, Loreley is however doomed to a life of total solitude, because this curse always accompanies her. It's around this legend that Esteban Menash, one of the co-founders of Cyclical Dreams and a member of Cartas de Japón, has chosen to present us with his first album-download. Despite its immense lyrical scope, DIE LORELEY remains a difficult album to tame. In a texture inspired by the cinematographic works of Vangelis, M3NASH inserts dramatic orchestral elements that will startle the listener or destabilize him with a musical direction very much stuck to the realism of this legend.

It's thus with the noise of the waves eating more and more the banks that Oceanides Ouvertüre monopolises our ears. The first seconds are wonderful with a piano as delicate as the humming of this kind of mermaid. And then bang! The opening goes off on a huge theatrical tangent with the piano pounding the cadence in a dense veil of dramatic orchestrations. This orchestral explosion calms down after the 3rd minute to let us hear the slow rubbing on the strings of a cello, preserving this atmosphere of mystery while creating a fascinating swaying that can be compared to those ancient galleons that let themselves be carried by the winds and the waves. A line of arpeggios appears counter-current about 20 seconds into the 5th minute, unfolding a spasmodic circular motion. Undine follows with a delicate stream of sequenced arpeggios forming an ambient rhythmic texture very reminiscent of Vangelis. Piano notes and tender lento orchestrations complete this picture where romance and intrigue go hand in hand. Mystische Melodie is the first contact we have with the Rhine hypnotic voice. It's an ambient title that ends in a tonal violence and begins with sound effects from the hold of a sailing ship. An oblong and dense electronic breeze ends to put them further in the auditory backfield without occluding them. These breezes become mobile drones that twist under the frenetic noises of the ship's hold and turn into sibylline orchestrations where one can hear these humming sounds as mysterious as Machiavellian. And then comes this discordant synth wave that amplifies without really finding its justification other than the madness that has already seized the few surviving sailors.

Between turmoil and betrayal, Nocturne is a beautiful piano ballad with intonations that flirt between violence and romance, inviting us into atmospheres where the line between good and evil has never been so blurred. Michael Brückner is invited to create his own unique texture of sequences, and he gives the first, and only, rhythmic impulse to this poetic work by M3NASH. Beginning with orchestrations stigmatized in the electronic winds over a distance of more than 3 minutes, Regen gives a new dimension to DIE LORELEY with a Berlin School movement unique to the German synthesist. Evasive melody-like synth effects follow the driving rhythm with circular loops and tenderly rendered sighs. A very good appearance of MB on this track that wears out its last 2 minutes in a sibylline ambience. Tinkling and winged orchestrations introduce us to Ruhe/Weinend. This opening inspired by Thierry Fervant's French School of the 80's-84's is torn between its dramatic and poetic appeal. It's a gong, some 2 minutes later, that propels us inside a huge clockwork where time is disrupted to let us hear this sweet harmony from a seraphic voice. Träumerei is a dark ballad, which is not a ballad, with fragile chords suspended and of which the resonant rays become the bed of Kristin Dietel's sumptuous voice. The entire album can be heard on YouTube, and with that in mind, Esteban Menash offers the bonus track Reflex. A short track of sibylline ambiences that fits very well at the end of an album that is difficult to tame and whose subsequent listenings give reason to our patience.

Sylvain Lupari (January 8th, 2022) ***½**

Available at Cyclical Dreams Bandcamp


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