“Medusa is a highly seductive album from MoonSatellite whose source of creativity is renewed from album to album”
1 Abyss 25:11
2 Escape 22:44
3 13 January 2019 (Live Session) 14:20
4 Medusa (Bonus Track) 11:37
(DDL 73:53) (V.F.)
(Cosmic Rock, French School)
The breath is hollow like an azure breeze infiltrating a branch without wood, or life. There is a deaf implosion which draws modulations in the arche of sounds, giving this effect of continual reverberations. Lapping water flows discreetly, recalling the ambiances of Waiting for Cousteau from Jean-Michel Jarre. Here too the notes tinkle without this desire to create a melody. Even fewer musical poems. Abyss' music proudly wears the title. Sound arches are invited and float with the grace of spatial choreographies, initiating a first slight waddling movement of the sequencer. And this rhythm is heard from afar. Immersed in the dense ambient canvas of the opening, it's like this plane that you lose and that you see again on a radar. A ghostly line exerts its duty to sing those fluty murmurs which appear a few minutes later. Abyss takes shape slowly, very slowly. There is like a turbulence of the spheres at the point of 16 minutes, a place where our ears plunge into the heavy reverberating whispers of the void. Barely transformed, Abyss returns with an amplified speed at the quarter-turn. If the morphic layers are always present, they have less grip on the stationary rhythm of the sequencer which gallops easily with a rhythmic melody. Taciturn and melancholic, Abyss plays the leading role in this last album of MoonSatellite. Available only for download, MEDUSA undertakes a 180 degree turn compared to 45 by offering 2 very distinct titles in an electronic symphony, always inspired by the cosmic works of Jean-Michel Jarre, which covers the two poles of EM. That is to say the ambient music and that propelled by a sequencer with a scent of analog music.
And it's in the fragrances of Klaus Schulze that Escape begins. Graffiti and kaleidoscope shapes embellish an opening attracted by psychedelism. A sequence undulates in this sound tunnel to come out with all the ascendancy over the unfolding of this title which always accelerates a little more its cadence. A line of bass sequences adds speed and heaviness. Subsequently, percussive clickings, a bass-drum, electronic percussions, and these rattlesnakes of wooden add as much charm and velocity to this structure snaked by the oscillating and exploring lines of a synth responsible for the moon mist and layers of Gregorian voices. It's great electronic rock. And if I was highly seduced by Escape, it's that I had not yet heard 13 January 2019 (Live Session)! Lone Wolf likes to record these improv sessions, some even land on his YouTube page, which testify to all the passion and thoroughness of the based-Lyon musician. Thus, January 13, 2019 (Live Session) begins with these electronic beeps fleeing silence, much like Klaus Schulze, to land on a reverberation nest. A fleeting shadow rises at the same time when the sequencers convulse a spasmodic line that caresses, both cosmic and philharmonic, bring into a universe of cosmic moods. The shadow then becomes gigantic and as enveloping as threatening with its aura of reverberations which permutes for a delicate cosmic landscape. This relaxing cotton ball evaporates in an anesthetic moment from where two lines of sequences, side by side, emerge in order to reshape the initial rhythm into a superb cosmic down-tempo fed by very good synth solos. Another great track! The purchase of the download also gives access to the title-track of MEDUSA. We are immersed here in moon mists with a gentle undulating rhythm, with some nuances in the impulses, under the voices of cosmic nymphs. I would say that it is the least interesting title of the album. A remark on the other hand that says a lot about the depth of a highly seductive album from MoonSatellite whose source of creativity is renewed from album to album…
Sylvain Lupari (June 14th, 2020) *****
Available at MoonSatellite Bandcamp