“Here is an excellent album that I have been playing in loop for 3 days now”
1 Autumn Sun 5:04
2 Into the Dark Sequence 12:43
3 Winter Sun 2:47
4 The Orange Sequence 6:14
5 Nucleosynthesis 9:42
6 Vangeliana 10:44
(DDL 47:17) (V.F.)
(Berlin School)
Here is an excellent album that I have been playing in loop for 3 days to know if I would not be carried away by my emotions once again. Because emotions are here with this very first album of MindPhaser on Cyclical Dreams. MindPhaser is the pen name of Felix Perez, a Chilean musician-astrophysicist who was visibly inspired by the Berlin School of the 70's in order to realize his first album IN TIME OF LOCKDOWN. This real crush draws its strength and its beauty from each new listening where we discover a new track at the same time as we notice something that we had missed on another track during a previous listening. At the time of writing these lines, I rediscover the lyrical approach of Vangeliana, whereas yesterday it was the turn of The Orange Sequence to make me discover something else. And so on. Thus, an unlimited richness electronic music where the perfumes of Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and even Neuronium are within reach of the nostrils. And no, I wasn't carried away for nothing!
The movement is sinusoidal minimalist. Autumn Sun breathes the lightness of its aspirations with a sequencer and its impatient balls which jump on an oscillating line undulating of its ample arabesques. Exhilarated with its seductive zigzagging algorithms, the static rhythm line traces intricate patterns while maintaining a melodious vision that flirts with the haze hiding its orchestra. Felix Perez's magical fingers trace melodious orchestrations that bind with the fluttery fluty chants of a divine mellotron. This mellotron and its swarms of violins slow down Autumn Sun's course some 30 seconds after the 3rd minute in order to soak our ears in the chthonian atmospheres of any good Berlin School. Into the Dark Sequence is a superb hypnotic track that combines several styles in a long pulsating corridor. The movement is hasty with a metronomic spirograph effect and an industrial beat that adjusts its speed according to the needs of this echoing, reverberating effect that feeds its empty stomach. Imp hooves start to jig, they are present at the opening, leading to a faster flow while the opposite happens when the metal crunches on the musical walls. The orchestrations are delirious and draw a strange parallel with a night of terror music that the chthonic ambiences always anchor a little more. Twists, springs and psychedelic spirals fill the ambiences of Into the Dark Sequence, giving it this wonderful psybient effect. And it's even more authentic when the track enters its ambient spheres from the 7th minute. Very good! Winter Sun is a short atmospheric track that moves by its muffled impulses trapped in a large bank of anaesthetic haze.
The Orange Sequence is a big Berlin School that undoubtedly refers to the bright and heavy sequences of Chris Franke in the heart of the 70's. Here we have a big heavy electronic rock dominated by the fluty airs of the Mellotron. It's a darker version of Autumn Sun that ends in the ambiences of the Force Majeure era from the Dream and a pure gift of the 70's! Then we reach another level with Nucleosynthesis. This other atmospheric track focuses on the On the Run track of Pink Floyd, in DSOTM, with a long corridor of sounds, a bit like Into the Dark Sequence, where the sound mass pulses continuously, collating left and right these pearls of sounds that burst in the turbulence of this cylindrical movement. It's not the kind of track that we will appreciate at the first listening, except that the ghostly pulsating rhythm and this impression to be in the psychedelic universe of Pink Floyd has what to fascinate and to stimulate our appetite for the sounds in a quite musical area. I might as well say it before you're getting aroused prematurely, Vangeliana has nothing of Vangelis. It's the sound of an organ that makes of its opening something majestic. A flute spreads its intoxicating perfume. Its impulses stick to the movement of this anaesthetizing layer bedded on a reverberating bed. The duel between the flute and the synth layers sounding like an organ gives unique moments. Privileged moments where the hairs on our arms rise to waltz, to drift with these ambiences that take us into a contemplative state where Neuronium and Klaus Schulze are guests of choice. Clashing things take our ears out of our head to better discern a form of rhythm as improbable as unexpected. Rude rattles are the culprits and begin to generate a circular percussive movement some 25 seconds after the 7th minute has fallen asleep. Stationary, this movement also lives from its echo before disappearing in a finale that makes sense.
My friends and readers, what a wonderful album this IN TIME OF LOCKDOWN is! MindPhaser graces us with a flawless album where pure Berlin School, with its infectious 70's rhythms, shows off all its styles, probabilities and possibilities. The ambient moments are obnubilating with those imprints, real or phantom, of pulsating rhythms. The synth layers are cut into the luxury of airy melodies that curl gently into the ear. I wrote it; no flaws!
Sylvain Lupari (August 10th, 2021) *****
Available at Cyclical Dreams Bandcamp