“Anunnaki is a breath of freshness with its rhythms easy to tame and support an electronic fauna and synth solos which suffer of no complexes”
1 Inner Transformation 10:52 2 Anunnaki 10:26 3 El Nino 6:00 4 Boat to Freedom 8:00 5 Exodus 3:46 6 Bolimowski Szlak 5:55 7 Voyager 12:51 8 Loss of Gravity 1:27 GEN CD 038
(CD/Spotify 59:34) (V.F.) (Space Rock , New Berlin School)
Keep this name in mind; Piotr Gepert! For his album, the Polish synthesist tosses us nothing less than a big slap between the ears. The delights of ANUNNAKI rest on motorik rhythms programming with delicious repetitive patterns, sometimes slightly out of sync, which haunt our brain and which bear as many melodies as great solos of very creative synths to the analog aromas. The magic rests on this cosmic approach which allies Jean-Michel Jarre's works in the splendor period of Innovative Communication and its kind of New Berlin School style. We are attracted very easily, and each track exploits a figure of rhythm as catchy as very different. Yet, another fine album of contemporary EM out of Generator PL.
A sigh of synth hangs onto to our lobe of ear. Intergalactic effects pepper the atmospheres whereas a lava of synth lays a little more dramatic aura, if not cosmic. A little like Jarre! These lavas widen their tones as warm as touching which intertwine languishingly, a little as if life took shape in the intersidereal space. The first 120 seconds of Inner Transformation are weaved in an approach as ambient as cosmic and, like bubbles which crowd in the edge of a neck, the rhythm which flows gets free with a meshing of keen bass oscillations and very mechanical percussions. The oscillations form loops of rhythmic melodies which coo like a pigeon on LSD while the lavas of synth put in fire a mass of tones as much electronic than cosmic. Energetic and lively, the rhythm of Inner Transformation is a kind fusion between Acid Cosmic Rock , Jazz and Funk on a very spacey background. Other percussions, one would say these wooden tap-dancing which have made the delights of Pop Corn, add more swiftness to a rhythm which passes from cosmic rock to cosmic Funk to fall finally in a solo of electronic percussions to the smells of Jazz. Crazy and totally unexpected! The title-track is my first very favorite! The intro is sewn in astral groans, cosmic caresses and tones unique to space music. We have to wait a good 2 minutes before the delicious rhythm of Anunnaki, as simple it is, will create this dependence to tap your foot on a beat of synth-pop which beats on a motorik rhythm. Always haloed with tones stolen to cosmos, and there is a lot, it shakes as in these dances where the members dislocate themselves as a human robot. Simple but damn effective, it has turned in my head all day long. El Nino offers an impulsive figure of rhythm, which rolls 5 times the speed of Inner Transformation, where sequences and oscillations are pounding fervently as lines chipped by keen metronomic spasms. Behind their sort of cries of distress, the synths throw harmonies fragmented and pads which sound like those of Tangerine Dream on their Jive years.
Piotr Gepert studies here various structures of rhythms. The one of Boat to Freedom switches a line of sequences which goes up and down under some superb caresses of a synth to the analog flavors. Jingles and parallel beatings accompany the indefatigable ascents and falls of the sequences which build this ambient rhythm while the synths throw harmonies which hum of a puny way, one would say tears of spectres, and sometimes heart-rending harmonious solos. There is some Jarre in there, especially for the tears of the spectres! With its wooden tap-dancing which peck at sequenced keys rumbling in troubled waters, the short Exodus could be a FM tube. The synth is splendid here and again it throws us solos which turn in the air like some agile indomitable capers. After the shouts of paradisiacal birds, Bolimowski Szlak entails us in a sort of rhythm which draws an endless running. The lively rhythm and the synth solos remind me enormously of the powerful track House in the Storm from P'cock. A key title that we could find on several compilations of EM in the 80's and the 90's. The synth solos here are simply devastating. Yet again, this infectious beat gets us on the edge. And if we make the count, each track to date drives us quite satisfied. The only weak point of ANUNNAKI, and this always according to my tastes, is Voyager which exploits the same pattern of rhythm , to some nuances near, for its whole 13 minutes. It's a kind of cosmic rock, with a bass line a little bit Funk, decorated with spatial voices and with good arrangements. Surprisely, that reminds me of Rainbow Serpent's own Voyager. A little shorter and that would have had the same impact as the first 6 titles. Loss of Gravity concludes the album on a sadder note with a superb synth which tosses solos as magical as melancholic on a delicate morphic lullaby. It misses a few minutes there! It's very beautiful...
A wonderful surprise that this first album of Piotr Gepert is. A mixture of Kraftwerk and Krautrock, for the mathematical rhythms, Jarre, for the airs and the effects borrowed to cosmos, and of the immense variety of the artists of IC (the synth reminds me at times the madness of Baffo Banfi), ANUNNAKI is a breath of freshness with its rhythms easy to tame but which support nevertheless an electronic fauna and solos of synth which suffer of no complexes.
Sylvain Lupari (April 22nd, 2016) *****
Available at Generator PL