MARTIN PETERS: Deeper Understanding (2021)

“If you like minimalist EM, this one is the kind that will seduce you long before you fall asleep”

1 Gone 20:16

2 Particles 13:25

3 The Wasp 13:32

4 Platis 21:52

Groove GR-321

(CD/DDL 69:05) (V.F.)

(Minimalist Berlin School)

The first sequence organizes bouncing balls in a synthesized haze. The cycle is almost perfect with 3 lower chords and another series of more musical arpeggios that circle in the background. It feels like this circular loop either picks up a little more speed or gets heavier as the haze intensifies in the background. Balls are added in the growing subtlety of Gone that faint explosions radiate of a more rumbling mass of sounds! Faster or fuller, this repetitive structure becomes the ball of a stationary rhythm that is inspired by the mechanical and repetitive movements of an escalator. And yet, the framework of Gone evolves. Either by adding more jumping keys, or by adding another line that hops in a canon effect on the previous one. There are also these synth effects that add a slab of paranoid poetry, a legitimate reminder of Klaus Schulze's ambiences in Dreams. These elements put together add a layer of intensity that seems to have no limit in the progression of the music. And it is with astonishment that we notice that we are already at the 14th minute. Gone deflates faster than it progresses, reaching a sleepy slowness in the land of the Aether maintained by that more intense fog that has carefully enveloped its final sequence, unless it is its ghost, 90 seconds before its final orchestral breath. The minimalist music! Do you like it? It's the sweet rendezvous Martin Peters invites you to. Ron Boots describes this musician from the Netherlands as an excellent sculptor of sequences. He's been working in the EM spheres since the early 2000's with a first album entitled Attorks released in 2002. DEEPER UNDERSTANDING is his 3rd solo album, the other being Angels of Nowhere in 2016. At the same time, he works with Rene de Bakker for the Beyond Berlin project which has released 5 albums since Music For Cosmic Nights 2013 in 2013.

Consistent with the idea of what one might have of luminous particles dancing with their tonal shadows, Particles is built around a chime movement amplified by five. The Particles dance briskly, shimmering their reflections that fattens the dancing mass like a wriggling pool of hand-fed fish on a sunny noon. A bass-pulse carves a sly rhythmic structure that moves back and forth on this carousel that has no control over its arpeggios. The merging of the two elements casts a shadow over the arrhythmic capers of the bouncing marbles, creating a short bridge in the third part the track where the vitality of the marbles shines again with clearer tinkling of new bells along quiet and nice synth solos over a rhythm structure that has become sly again. The Wasp feeds slightly on Particles, especially its last third. A more musical track with the sequencer, synth, synth bass and chimes uniting their disparate in a perfect circle from the outside and a little less from the inside. I feel more like I'm hearing a Tubular Bells remix, played fast, here than in Particles. Platis features a rhyme played on a piano and keyboard. The main segment is sequenced and is adding to this long, minimalist structure filled with nuances each time, or almost every time, that Platis goes up, down, and back to its starting point. Like a longer escalator! Exploiting its Gone-like structure, the track stores different keyboard chords, some lively and some orchestral, in a fluidity and complicity between the harmony and the ascending rhythm structure. A unique blend of Klaus Schulze and Mike Oldfield for pure happiness for the ears.

If you like minimalist music, DEEPER UNDERSTANDING is the kind of album that will seduce you long before you fall asleep. Martin Peters has a flair and knows how far he can stretch his repetitive sequences and when to coat them with another layer before a minute too long. A good album where everything is similar, but in the end, nothing is really the same.

Sylvain Lupari (October 12th, 2021) ****¼*

SynthSequences.com

Available at Groove nl