“If you are a fan of cosmic music, you will find that those 36 minutes pass too quickly”
1 Analog Way Part 01 2:58
2 Analog Way Part 02 5:30
3 Analog Way Part 03 4:02
4 Analog Way Part 04 4:38
5 Analog Way Part 05 4:23
6 Analog Way Part 06 4:58
7 Analog Way Part 07 4:31
8 Analog Way Part 08 5:07
(CD/DDL 36:11) (V.F.)
(Cosmic Music)
It's in the bed of twisted and reverberating synth waves that the sequencer weaves a helix movement whose circular beat snakes a maudlin ambient melody of the synthesizer. From the start, Analog Way Part 01 shows what ANALOG WAY will be made of. This new album of MoonSatellite brings nothing new to the catalog of my dear friend Lone Wolf. Very good cosmic rock that follows the fictitious highway of the Cosmos in tints of analogue electronic music (EM) that were the essence of Jean-Michel Jarre's first works of interplanetary dimension. And that's right! After 15 albums and/or album-downloads and 13 years further than his Sequenzer - Volume 1, the musician from Nantes continues to expand the boundaries of cosmic EM in a mix of floating rhythms and catchy melodies rolling and flowing within enchanting lunar setting. To put it simply, let's say that our ears sit on board a space shuttle that leaves to discover 36 minutes of pure happiness for the cosmic rock lovers. The evolution of Analog Way Part 01 takes us to a pulsating rhythmic structure lovingly bitten by synth harmonies whose weeping or simply spectral cosmic approach is hard to pin down.
It's under hoops of mist dissolving and agonizing in their steel blue texture that the pulsations of Analog Way Part 02 command these floating rhythms which feed the beats of this new album of the French musician which is offers as much in a manufactured CD as in download. Let's talk about the sonic setting and this combination of cosmic sounds from the vintage years and more modern years with new synthesizers and their sample bank. It gives an unctuous base to the 8 tracks of ANALOG WAY. The sequencer highlights on this Analog Way Part 02 a bass-sequence line that initiates this ambivalent rhythm and a line of melodious arpeggios that graze each other in a structure dominated by this melancholic vision as poltergeist of the synth. And these melodies, aphrodisiacs for the pains of the tortured souls, are also masters of the 36 minutes of this short album. In very good and restrained impulses, the elastic rhythm comes and goes in the moans of this synth whose dimensions remain always to be seized. These moans and the orchestrations are very touching and guide us towards short phases of meditative reveries. We dock to Analog Way Part 03 and its sequences that flutter softly while hopping on the tip of their rhythmic harmonies in a more chthonian universe whose responsibility belongs to discreet hoarse voices. Here, even the timbre of the synth is different with layers that describe semi-consumed circles, giving more the impression of drifting than moving forward. Always very moving, the mournful melodies decorate the decor of Analog Way Part 04 whose rhythmic structure clings to this ascending movement of the bass-sequences in a choreography of graceful movements of an amorphous slowness.
This is the prelude to the heart of ANALOG WAY and its powerful cosmic rock that is Analog Way Part 05. You can't get more J-MJarre than on this track with its rhythm bordering a cosmic rock and techno beat. The sequencer weaves one of those circular strobe structures that fuel the rhythmic shapes on this album, while the percussions lean towards a more technoïd tendency in an ever more seductive pool of sound effects. In contrast, Analog Way Part 06 emerges from its atmospheric opening and melodic yet plaintive strands with a heavy, slow pace. A short line of flickering sequences that come and go is the basis of this rhythm that takes root via a numbing bass layer. A series of circular bass-sequences extend a long filament of rhythmic strobes that encircle the ambient melody laid down over synth layers which are fluttering with a chloroformed essence. The cosmic haze radiates its charms on this rhythm structure contrasting of its two parallel sequence lines that never have the same velocity flight. A superb title that depicts the magic of the MoonSatellite universe. This journey of intertwined sequences and of ephemeral melodic sequenced appearances continues on Analog Way Part 07 whose muffled pulsating rhythm extends its vibrations in a cosmic track filled of lunar orchestrations. Analog Way Part 08 ends this rather short album of my friend Lone Wolf with this slightly gyrating sequence movement that goes back and forth in a more atmospheric cosmic sound mass. This hypnotic come and go supports this melody of weeping arpeggios that lays a dose of hypnosis between our ears and clings to the restrained surges of cymbal rattlings sown in the vastness of a Cosmos faithfully depicted in music.
Built on the premise of the slow and evolving rhythms of 45 and Medusa, ANALOG WAY graces the MoonSatellite discography with another beautiful album of cosmic EM. And if you are familiar with the universes of Lone Wolf and Jean-Michel Jarre, you will find that the 36 minutes of this album pass cruelly too quickly. We can not find better in the genre...
Sylvain Lupari (May 6th, 2022) ****¼*
Available at MoonSatellite Bandcamp