“We don't buy MC Square for the music, but rather for an auditory experience that meet P Fan's visions”
1 Space Opera 14:33
2 Metaswamp 13:25
3 Confused Species 7:40
4 Valley Of Cages 10:13
5 Layers 10:20
6 Creepers 5:21
(CD-R/DDL 61:40) (V.F.)
(Abstract & Experimental EM)
How to describe invisible and abstract music without falling into snobbery? Because talking about a form of anti-music is like talking about braille writing without being able to read it. That's the reflection I had while listening to this opus as dark and enigmatic as its cover. Pete Farn is a German sound engineer who improvises purely experimental EM, the genre taken from a Modular synth, from the same ground as Tangerine Dream on Electronic Meditation, as well as the psychedelic acid rock from the same era. Cold, metallic and very abstract music that requires a good dose of auditory curiosity. And sometimes it pays...
Space Opera begins with a synth with static waves and melodious prisms that get lost in mists born of metallic dust. These layered mists, sometimes placidly cold and sometimes strangely attractive, wander in a kind of ballet for distortions, so much the movement is so slow and laborious. It's metal that one twists and from which all these auditory streaks, as painful as they are curiously melodious, are emerging, forming short moments of metallic floating. Sound! Molten liquid sound and sound effects that, if we really pay attention, actually remind us of the birth of TD. Metaswamp is more aquatic with spectral breaths and its strange cries of ducks which roll in loops with guttural frictions. A strange and fascinating sound fauna like on Confused Species and its oddities which deviate on a strange melody with fluid and harmonious orchestrations. A mind-blowing title where you would think you were running in a dark corridor to escape a metallic beast. At this level Creepers is more accurate with their metallic spectra which float as much as run on the metallic strings of a sharp cello. There are also titles of a realism consistent with the vision of Pete Farn. After a Valley of Cages as engulfing as Space Opera, Layers brings a ghostly touch with beautiful dark mellotrons, dense but soft with its choirs and its strangely haunting arrangements on percussions out of context.
We don't buy MC SQUARE for the music, but rather for an auditory experience where the masses of sounds with strange metallic fusions join the curiosity and the creative ability of its designer. It's certainly not the kind of music that we like for its melodious approach, but that we can appreciate for its sonic evolution, if not to impress those around ourselves ...
Sylvain Lupari (April 26th, 2008) *****
Available at SynGate Luna Bandcamp