“Nebulae: Live at the Planetarium is like to follow the evolution of Granite towards another sonic skin”
1 Into the Nebulae - Intro 4:33 2 Bowed Thoughts 3:37 3 Sea Surfaces 3:50 4 Granite 6:59 5 Saint Germain 4:10 6 Out of Silence 4:34 7 Edelbitter - Reconstructed 4:32 8 Inside Eyesight 7:42 9 Kurukshetra - Far East 3:57 10 Distance B - Distanced 9:10 11 Tabula Rasa Fading Nebulae 6:52 Ultimae Records | inre086 (CD/DDL/Spotify 60:02) (V.F.) (Psybient Electronica)
Always very active in the milieu of an underground style of EM, Ultimae Records has organized a mega concert of ambient immersive music on February 13th, 2016 at the famous Zeiss Planetarium of Bochum in Germany. AES Dana, Miktek and Martin Nonstatic, who had the honor to open this show, have played their music with images projections on the dome created by none other than Tobias Wiethoff. NEBULEA: LIVE at the PLANETARIUM is a recording of this event and stars the music of Martin Nonstatic who presented a quite different version of his album Granite which appeared in the tubs at the very end of 2015.
Only title which was not of Granite, Into the Nebulae - Intro attracts us in a very ethereal atmosphere where the music, always very split up by shorts episodes and rhythmic and harmonious, derives between our ears with these small strange noises, one would say footstep of mice in a concrete wall, and these bursts of passion that we found in Granite. Except that here, the sound has changed! We feel a reserved dynamism which quietly wakes up in the sounds of scattered notes of a piano and these sound rustles which often come from another universe. And quietly, Into the Nebulae - Intro ties itself to the little feet dance of Bowed Thoughts. If we remember well the album Granite, Bowed Thoughts introduced the album in a ambient way. The approach was lunar, even discreet, with a structure which looked for its power in its carpet of ambiences. But not here! Everything of Granite, set apart very dark Open Minded which is absent here, is reconstituted in a clearly richer sound envelope and with more frequent and more sharp rhythms. As mentions the press kit; we recognize the spirit but the story is something else. And it's true! The moments strictly ambient are rarer and the rhythms take more place and are more lively, while the psychedelico-organic and cosmic envelope which surrounds the works of the Lyons label is as much amplified than the structures of rhythms. The order of the titles is also mixed here, so that we have the impression at times to hear a new album with airs of already heard. If Granite has on us the same effect, Saint Germain makes us jump with its envelope of atmospheres and its crumbled rhythms which are oversized by a sound envelope which gives more ascendancies to these delicious parasitic noises which make all the mysteries of the Ultimae Records albums. And it's the same thing for the other titles with mentions more than honorable to Sea Surfaces and Out of Silence. The first big surprise comes from Edelbitter-Reconstructed which is clearly more hungry for beats here. More oneiric on Granite, it's more passionate here with a finale all in rhythms. It's the very opposite with Kurukshetra - Far East which is a little more ambient here and nicely decorated with seraphic voices. Distance B - Distanced keeps the same cachet in a more stretched envelope of time. The same goes for Tabula Rasa - Fading Nebulae which throws a more ambient finale.
A richer and a denser sonic cocoon, a presentation of the titles in a different order and wealthier of rhythms; NEBULEA: LIVE at the PLANETARIUM is like to follow the evolution of Granite towards another sonic skin. If we are always enthralled by the grace of its movements we are amazed even more in front of the more attractive colors of its new skin. And as usual, the mastering work of Vincent Villuis approaches the genius of the manipulation of sounds.
Sylvain Lupari (September 22nd, 2016) *****
Available at Ultimae Records Bandcamp