“All in all, this album is an interesting experience in a vision of experimental ambient music”
1 Twinkles in your Eyes 18:42 2 Chaos Feverdream 20:13 3 Trying to Fall in Sleep 19:19 4 Beyond the Border 16:49
(DDL 65:03) (V.F.)
(Ambient experimental music)
A circular wave makes its twinklings radiate and while its arpeggios dance there randomly. We perceive a latent intensity which pushes the tinkles to form imperfect circles and which little by little become percussive scintillations. Cosmic elements are grafted to this ballet of more or less psychedelic shimmers, while in the decor a movement of the sequencer adopts this tone of shimmering bells in an ascending texture. While some tones inject a musical aura, others give off strident sounds. The sequencer continues its morphic procession, joining a cosmic point where shooting stars make whistle their invisible furrows while other stars twinkle to flood a universe where even Tibetan monks lose their Chinese. And like that, resulting from a sound and its multiple reverberating factors, Twinkles in your Eyes takes the form of a seductive symphony of astral chimes. Five years after my last review about a Phrozenlight album, the album Black Week, Bert Hulshoff has stood the test of time and still composes his music at the rate of an album a week. And how is it? In fact, there is no shortage of resources!
Different rustles, roars and cavernous winds make up the introduction of Chaos Feverdream. And one can easily imagine the rest with sound circles without guiding axes which encircle these reverberating elements. Percussions add thunder and din to this tornado of psychedelic-electronic effects of yesteryear. If the percussions have evaporated, riffs are grafted in order to support a rhythmic illusion which turns as much in circles as these sonic filaments extirpated from the sufferings of a synthesizer having lost its nobility. Chaos Feverdream continues to exploit chaos in all its forms in an ambient drama where reason justifies the means! Trying to Fall in Sleep also uses a long musical structure of around 20 minutes. The idea is clear with a soft line of oscillations tracing a minimalist movement that will serve as a pretext to sabotage a nice sleepy texture by different attacks of sounds and the crash of scattered rhythms. Beyond the Border offers us an ambient movement born from a tube of buzzes which extends its long aphasic membrane. Favoring the Cosmos as a welcoming land, this long purring boa serves as a basis for depositing various sound elements, of which the echo ends up forming a procession sewn in minimalist jolts. The idea is silent at the 11-minute point, giving a second life to this movement of reverberations which pollute my headphones in a final too far for my tolerance.
I thought Twinkles in your Eyes kicked off an interesting album. Except that Phrozenlight rather caressed the idea of dissonance by making germinate a mass of white noise, distortions and electronic suffering which reached its climax with Chaos Feverdream. On the other hand, Bert Hulshoff shows that he has continuity in his ideas by giving a tonal color favorable to the visions of his titles. But all in all, an interesting experience in a vision of experimental ambient music!
Sylvain Lupari (July 31st,2020) ***¾**
Available at Phrozenlight Bandcamp