“Despite its harmonious vision, it remains an album that requires some listening in order to become familiar with these scents of already heard”
1 The Colour of Water 14:28
2 Sunlight 9:36
3 Giraffe 7:36
4 The Ghosts of Antarctica 7:40
5 Too Late 14:29
(DDL 53:49) (V.F.)
(Electronic Prog-Rock, New Age)
Coming from afar in my speakers, The Color of Water takes shape with beats of percussions, intertwined with claps of hands. The sweet piano that follows, roots our memories in this opening which is a pleasant nod to Alchemy of the Heart that we find on Tyger. We can move forward without being mistaken that it's a remix, and a good one aside from that. The structure evolves within the same parameters, without however touching the rhythmic tension of the version played by Franke, Froese & Haslinger. There is rhythm! Traced like a silk sketch on the same orientations, The Color of Water takes the same path but in a more harmonious and above all more joyful vision than the taciturn side of Alchemy of the Heart. The ambiences are also more refined in a less electronic vision. Mainly supported on the piano and the keyboard, the rhythm follows its cadence and emerges from the ambient phases with more force until reaching a kind of Honky-Tonk linked to Jazz. And as in the original version, the title ends in a sphere of slight dissonances which the piano is getting out winner.
Intoxicated by the fragrances of Tyger, a Tangerine Dream album that fans and critics have judged quite harshly, OUT: THE SESSIONS sails in this universe by drawing ideas and redefining these contexts in order to create an album that is just as disparate, but with a melodious vision unique to the style of Perge. Pardon, of Matthew Stringer. It's without his companion Graham Getty that Matthew tackled this companion album to Out, The Way We Came In. He seeks to exploit even more this sound of the mid-80's until the end of 89.
Sunlight lands with the delicacy of a pleasant morphic lullaby and the sighs of angels that fly in a clearing invaded by the mists of murmur. These aerial flights have this neurasthenic taste of Michel Huygen's synth arias with the sensation that they float to better land near our lobe in order to whisper the whims of divinity. Clear, unopposed jingles ring out around 5:30 minutes, adding an oneiric element to the hissing mists. These tinkles become keyboard chords with the doubtful taste of a guitar, or of another stringed instrument, thus feeding the last third of Sunlight which seems to refuse this rhythmic gift with very Tangerine Dream essences, still from the Tyger era, before finding the thread of its opening in its final. Giraffe is a seductive track with an opening focused on the playing of the sequencer and of its multiple lines of rhythm whose intertwining and stacking forge a crossroads of rhythm as nervous as dense and platonic. This rhythmic mass is also made up of stubborn jumping keys, giving impressions of dribbling and momentary impulses. In short, everything to seduce lovers of sequences. Solos whistle and sing on this structure, developing peaks of intensity and wanderings for a finale that comes a little too quickly. A strong title with a vision of Vangelis in the harmonies. Vision which is much more attractive in The Ghosts of Antarctica. This great track is an incredible remix of the title-track from this Vangelis album in an intense vision of ambient music, down-tempo and psybient. Ingenious, melodious and wonderful! We arrive at Too Late. And always inspired by Tyger, Matthew throws a delicate spiral which, gathering everything in its path, becomes a big upward movement trapped in a sequenced volute. The movement is ennobled by circular sequences and others more lively, more incisive ones in a maelstrom where Giraffe is very close. Synth solos insert their twists made of spells, while a first phase of ambient elements restructure the rhythm with oblong undulating movements where stubborn arpeggios are dancing and a good bass line runs along. We are in an electronic rock space with Tangram perfumes in this structure which, after a second phase of ambiences, surrounds itself with a necklace of resonant and pealed notes that attracts the finale of Too Late with pearly tears that wither and empty in the gloomy winds and their metallic mist.
Despite its fairly harmonious approach, OUT: THE SESSIONS remains an album that requires some listening in order to become familiar with these structures with the scents of already heard in Tyger and which nevertheless have their own identities in this album. A great album with 5 solid EM tracks of the heart of the 80's.
Sylvain Lupari (24/09/20) *****
Available at Perge Bandcamp