“Frenetic, soft and hypnotic rhythms which go alongside with some ambient and morphic structures, the diversity is Ypsilon Project's great richness”
1 In-Thro-Duction 4:57
2 Sequence Space 12:11
3 Busy City 8:11
4 Morning Rush 7:38
5 Ypsilon 7:59
6 Experience 6:37
7 Ambiente 11:51
8 Current Drive 11:17
9 Acti-vitae 5:20 (Bonus Track)
(CD/DDL 76:06) (V.F.)
(Techno, EDM, E-Rock, Cosmic)
YPSILON PROJECT is born out of a studio session held in Odyssey's studio on September 2002 with Remote Space. Together they melted their influences and styles in a musical union which joined the recollections of the 80's. This making, Tomasz Pauszek, Konrad Jakrzewski and Krysztof Rzeznicki, the duo behind Remote Space, signed an album with rhythms as varied as their styles. From Kraftwerk to Jean-Michel Jarre via Robert Schroeder and Double Fantasy, YPSILON PROJECT is the meeting point of a transition period in EM.
A threadlike cosmic furrow comes down from the deep end of the galaxy to cross its harmonies with a splendid guitar that a synth molds of its poignant heart-rending solos. A very good floating track, In-Thro-Duction introduces us to this album with an astral tenderness where our dreams float on guitar solos which go adrift in a cosmos filled with stars and celestial bodies which furrow and shine with their musical irradiations. Sequence Space is shaking us out of our soft morphic torpor with fine droplets falling through their echoes. A good and warm rhythm is settling down and livens up the rhythm which moves like a down tempo, but more cosmic with nice electronic tonalities which wrap a pace becoming more caustic. A soft moon-tempo anchored on a sequential line with delicate pulsations of bass skipping among sequences and more fluid keyboard keys. A track strongly tinted of cosmic fragrances and which reminds me of Double Fantasy's musical universe, Sequence Space is flied over by good twisted synth solos and by nice mellotron mist. Percussions pound at the opening of Busy City, a track that could easily compares to Kraftwerk's techno style. The rhythm is crystal-clear and unfolds pleasantly on jerky synth layers of which the repetition molds a stationary impetus. A strong electro techno track, Busy City unravels its 8 minutes with a steady rhythm and a pulsating frenzy where a variance in the percussions and wild pulsations assures a rhythmic pattern which kicks down the shed. Then blooms a long movement of which the melodious approach varies without ever losing its very electronic cachet, quite as the boiling and furious Morning Rush which is more contemporary and which soaks in an array of heterogeneous electronic tones. Ypsilon's intro is melting with the finale of Morning Rush and offers a rhythm with fine subtleties in the movement, a little like on Sequence Space but with more firmness in the beat.
Experience follows Ypsilon with crystalline arpeggios which collide over a sequence of resonant undulations. While we expect an explosive rhythm, Experience takes a whole new turn with a heavy rhythm certainly but imbued with a nice musicality. A kind of techno sitting on minimalism arpeggios which roll on dichotomous percussions and whose whole aspect of the rhythm is wrapped in dense layers of synths. Synths that sing and charm while dropping nice cooing solos. This is one of the good titles on this album. With Ambiente we approach the ambient part of YPSILON PROJECT. A complex track segmented into several movements; the intro is a slow cosmic waltz where the layers of synths multiply by borrowing contrasting tones on a slender structure of crotale tail's effects. Abrasive layers which merge into other wadding to form a strange moon dance and which take a superb musical corridor where soft bewitching percussions light up a curious hypnotic tempo. A true electronic dance which is reminiscent of the ether universes of Klaus Schulze's first albums, Ambiente evolves with such unpredictability that each new turn charms the listener. A great title with synths as seductive as they are charismatic which feed an extraordinary lunar procession that crotale's sound effects come, here and there, to add more strangeness to this sublime title. It's quite a fact that fans of evolving ambient music will love it. Halfway between the ambient softness of Ambiente and the timid rhythms of Sequence Space, Current Drive evolves on a slow, but constant, rhythmic progression where the percussions play a preponderant role in its hybrid structure. The more Current Drive advances, the more the tempo adopts a tribal approach with a jerky rhythm where percussions take the shape of aboriginal drums from an unknown planet, while the keyboards polish a captivating melody from beyond space and the synths envelop the structure's long and resonant path of twisted drafts. Current Drive is another strong track on this album where styles are lost in the creative originality of the Polish trio. Acti-Vate concludes with a hectic rhythm which dances on good synth flights. An 80's techno with Kraftwerk sauce, Acti-Vate shows the good versatility of Odyssey and Remote Space.
Curt and frenetic rhythms, others suave and hypnotic, which go alongside with some ambient and morphic structures, the diversity of YPSILON PROJECT is its great richness. It's this kind of album where musicality and diversity can reach and please a wider audience without sacrificing musical research. A particularly good album that can easily split two styles in the same desire to tame a music and thus break down many presumptuous barriers.
Sylvain Lupari (March 4th, 2011) *****
Available at Generator Pl