“That's have to be the most beautiful and most accessible album that Michel Huygen has produced so far”
1 Al-Ula 5:16 2 Return to Mystykatea 6:41 3 La Hija Del Sol 1:49 4 In Your Dimension 4:53 5 Elon's Visions 4:19 6 Electro-Bubbles of Energy4:20 7 Santa Monica Promenade 4:08 8 Suvarnabhumi (The Golden Land) 7:21 9 Kryptyk 4:00 10 Et Ad Te Ipsum 5:30 Neuronium Records | NR23-8009234 (48:17) (V.F.) (Ambient, New Age, Melodic)
Michel Huygen is not Neuronium! In the sense that the co-founder of the Spanish cult band of EM is very able to move away from the spheres of Neuronium when he proposes an album under his name. Two entities for two very distinct approaches where his music is much more meditative and perfumed by the melodious sweetness of New Age, while that of Neuronium is more focused on a psychotronic model allied to Berlin School. Except that on KRYPTYK, Michel Huygen transgresses with an unstoppable fingering his own borders. The music proposed on this (already) 44th opus of Huygen/Neuronium, since that Quasar 2C361 has treaded our ears in 1977, travels between phases of meditation, beautiful soft melodies to make our soul shivering and structures animated of rhythms as complex as very catchy. The arrangements, the effects of voices and guitar are amazingly realistic and transports us to a beautiful sonic collection that even seduced my beautiful Lise. The most beautiful and most accessible album that Michel Huygen has produced so far!
And it starts with slight jingles and synth lines whose reverb effects even caress our ears. Al-Ula releases these synth lines with very diversified colors that twist like a nest of snakes on a prisoner island in the middle of an astral ocean. Filaments with absent voices hum an embryonic melody that melts into a brief rhythmic offering and loses itself in a finale splashed with ephemeral tones like moths trapped in an electric trap. Subsequently, we fall into the first operation charm of KRYPTYK,with the superb Return to Mystykatea. This elegiac title offers a romantic piano with tears of melancholy that resonate in the web of void. Michel Huygen has created a splendid soprano voice in the interstices of his synthesizer. Its seraphic chants light up the furnace of our emotions. And paired with this piano as evasive as the most beautiful moments of Vangelis or Suzanne Ciani, they pull us quietly towards the sweet songs of astral whales. A superb moment which continues, even if the two titles are not linked, with another piece of tenderness, La Hija Del Sol and its concerto for sampled voices on the bed of a celestial harp. Another title that shows Huygen's talent of creator is In Your Dimension which continues this path of tenderness and melancholy initiated by Al-Ula. Here it's an acoustic guitar that weaves the canvases of romance of a lonely soul under a starry sky. The guitar notes resonate with realism and its pinched tweets that go straight to the heart are dampened by a layer of an absent choir and some nice orchestral arrangements.
Elon's Visions ends this emotional relationship between Michel Huygen and his listener with very twisted solos jostling in a structure without other lives, apart from some notes that try to come together in order to create a more coherent structure. I'm not sure, but I hear some notes whispering to me as the solos gesticulate and sing with the implants of a soprano on drug. Finally, these chords and sequences sculpt a rhythm always without cohesion where charm however textures and forms of solos sometimes quite ethereal. We are in the rhythmic phase of KRYPTYK with a very playful Electro-Bubbles of Energy in its musical funfair elements. Crystal clear arpeggios unfold an endless harmonic bed on a dislocated dance rhythm, like break-dance, where are tinkling some big juicy sequences and other fat chords. We stay in a good EDM phase with the suave Santa Monica Promenade. This title cuts through all the elements in order to obsess us all day long; a light and catchy rhythm, sensual voices in the background and a divine female singer who radiates our ears with a voice of goddess while the piano weaves an incredible melody weaver of musical itch. One whistles and hums in our head for a while! When Michel informed us that Suvarnabhumi (The Golden Land) was nominated at the Hollywood Music Awards, Media section, as one of the best New Age Ambient tracks in 2018, I didn't expect the Americans to have a so open-minded. It's indeed an ambient title with fragrances of the East which astonishes by the purity of the Diva sampled and arranged by himself in the filters of his synthesizer. The title-track offers a good bold rock where our friend Michel overflows with his meditative style to flirt with his Neuronium side with a complex and tasty approach in both organic and psychotronic textures. Let's say I didn't like it the first time...maybe the second shot too! I think it's because of its creativity and its incredible stereo effects that we end up by liking this KRYPTYK. And Ad Te Ipsum ends this album by an ocean of serenity, thus closing the loop of an album that takes us through the gamut of emotions. A very surprising album by Michel Huygen for whom the synthesizers don't have any more secrets but which still remain to our ears, at least mine, those instruments of endless auditory pleasures!
Sylvain Lupari (October 11th, 2018) *****
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