“The music here is this kind of a horn of plenty for those who are gourmand of sounds and of heavy and syncopated rhythms”
1 The Rout of Ellipsis 5:33 2 Sub Strata (live edit) 4:20 3 Soundway 5:55 4 If You Knew 2:18 5 The Return (Remix) 4:48 Audiomodern – AM016
(CD 22:54) (V.F.) (EDM, PsyBient, Industrial Synth-Pop)
Max Million is a Greek musician and a producer who is actively involved on the scene of psybient and/or electro pop music with psychedelic tendencies since almost 10 years. It's by the means of the Ultimae Records label and the compilations AMBROSIA (Selected by Fishimself), released in 2011, as well as [PASSAGES] Framed by Nova, released 3 years later, that I have discovered the music of Max Million. In fact, Skying from this last compilation had literally blown me. Furthermore, Sub Strata had been a very pleasant surprise during my discovery of the Ambrosia universe and more particularly of this very creative Lyon based label which does not stop putting of the front an EM which refuses any compromise. This wrote, AFTERIMAGES is heavier, livelier and less in the kind of floating psybient style than the trademark of the Lyon-based label. I agree with my buddy that pointed out to me that the music here sounds like some industrial synth-pop with contemporary psychedelic effects and ambiospheric passages which approach at times the drifting essences of the New Berlin School. In brief, a good cocktail which lasts only 23 minutes...
An Arabian breath, resonant pulsations and sequences which dislocate some harmonies split up in sonic hoops, The Rout of Ellipsis begins early to make our nervous feet. The rhythm is lively with a good marriage of percussions and loud hummings and filled with electronic effects, among which some deformed voices and breaths of old cornets of trumpets in a style of Jazz fusion, which give an unreal relief to these harmonies also sibylline than Arabian. The title plunges into an ambiospheric phase rather cosmic with effects of jerks in Eastern breezes where sparkle sound prisms by tens. It's a good title, very lively, that is not far from New Berlin School while feeling very at ease in its EDM envelope. Less immured in a heavy approach than on the compilation AMBROSIA (Selected by Fishimself), the version of Sub Strata (live edit) sounds more acoustic while being very near the original version. This is a good psybient which gets lively in a discreet down-tempo. Some heavy hummings, one would say a big machine which snores, opens Soundway. Fragile, a line of piano puts down a delicate ritornello of which the repetition haunts the heavy and slow rhythm that Max Million also waters with notes of an acoustic six-strings and with winds of East. The rhythm becomes vampiric with a heavy line of bass which stretches its snores over a good percussions pattern which sparkle around a zest of a light Jazz where the breaths of trumpets and the lines of piano spread a delicate duel of harmonies weakened by a heavy envelope of bass. If You Knew is a short title of film atmospheres with notes of an acoustic six-strings which save themselves from the breaths of the death. Short and very effective at the level of the atmospheres. The Return (Remix) brings us to another level with a heavy rhythm which pounds and buzzed of its heavy pulsations. It's a solid up-tempo with effects of jerks while the atmospheres are drawn by a thick cloud of sound effects. A rather distant feminine voice charms with its Garbage approach. Yes, some great industrial synth-pop!
Even if it's not the usual kind of music which furnishes my long listening hours daily, I quite liked this AFTERIMAGES. I had to lower the volume of my subwoofer because the bass is to make the neighborhood rage. Some dynamite where the harmonies shine in a so oriental envelope as much sibylline. In brief, to think of it well there are many elements of charm in this E.P., very well presented moreover, which is a horn of plenty for those who are gourmand of the sound on heavy and syncopated rhythms where the kind as not so much importance.
Sylvain Lupari (July 4th, 2016) ***¾**
SynthSequences.com
Available at Max Million Bandcamp