“Jean Michel Jarre, Pink Floyd, Kitaro and Klaus Schulze gathered in the same sound pattern can only be puzzling and mesmerizing!”
1 Hidden Nooks of our Ego 16:43
2 Sowers of Interstellar Intellects 12:26
3 Cosmic Primordial Soup 3:26
4 Who Goes There? 15:01
a. That's Not a Dog
b. Perfect Imitation (Humanity Reprise)
c. Aftermath
5 Astral Beings Hatchery 3:19
6 Misanthropic Aliens 16:43
a. Whispers from the Ancient Permafrost
b. Helpless Prisoners of Fiction
c . Diplomacy Failed
(CD/DDL 74:24) (V.F.)
(Experimental, ambient and innerscapes EM)
Always unexplained, the barriers of Unexplored Secrets of REM Sleep (album of electronic psychosis written in duet with Wladyslaw Komendarek) had opened towards another sound dimension which embraced the intellectual frenzies of Przemyslaw Rudz. Constantly transported by the cosmic breezes of his Jarre influences, the Polish synthesist dives back into a musical universe to the abstract forms where cosmic tones of any forms and kinds decorate the wall of impassiveness that is PAINTINGS. This last sonic fresco of Przemyslaw Rudz is a work of ambiences and atmospheres of cosmic and organic tones which remind me the ambiospherical structures of the first years from Kitaro and Klaus Schulze, as well as the psychedelicosmic frenzies of Pink Floyd. In brief, it's a work which is not accessible to all ears but which is going to delight the fans of the Polish synthesist and those who like a music which deviates, and by more than a mile, from the conventional paths.
Waves, as earthly as cosmic, are buzzing with tones of machineries on the beaches of our overflowing imagination for the works of sci-fi. They roll in a din where sirens of European police are crying with fury before that the silence does cut the sound hostilities. A brief silence which allows cows of mooing in a sound painting where the rustles of paranoiac kleptomaniacs are fading under more and more insistent droning. Michal Kaluzny shows all of his ingenuity by multiplying sound effects which go paranoid in these intense ambient drones which transport the frenzies of Hidden Nooks of our Ego. Pink Floyd's Ummagumma is the first thing that comes to mind to describe better the universe of sound phantasmagoria that is this last opus of Przemyslaw Rudz. The ambiences of this album are out of this world. Sounds, tones and more sounds which bloom from everywhere, piling up into morphic envelopes with fleeting rhythms which are more often static than livened up, exactly like in Hidden Nooks of our Ego. On a slow wandering totally abstracted with tones of cosmos which glide and sparkle in a frosty nothingness, this long epic track deploys an arsenal of disparate cosmic tones which by moments take refuge within the wrapping arms of a synth and its soporific caresses. Something like a rhythm goes and comes. Statics, it's set by oscillations and humming mislaid in an immense ambiospherical sound painting. A line of sequence emerges a little after the 12th minute. Its pulsations are smothered by a sound broth which erodes any freedom of hatching, confining this long introductory track in its sonorous meanders where the art of music without music reigns in absolute master. More musical but always so abstract, Sowers of Interstellar Intellects is a slow morphic waltz which overwhelms any rebellion, even that of the percussions without rhythms which beat a din under the breaths of synth with aromas of a cosmic saxophone. One has to wait until Who Goes There? before crossing the first real rhythms of PAINTINGS. And let me tell it straightaway, it's a great track which is going to switch your ears back to front!
The intro is fed by Scandinavian gusts which rouse the frenzy of a crowd of dogs of which the barks get lost in the strange moos of Yeti or missing link. Prisms congeal their tones in suspension, when a heavy pulsation à la Ramp (maybe Redshift?) spreads a heavy climate of suspense. Percussions support the slow cardiac rhythm coming from the resonant pulsations with tick-tock of wooden whereas that a synth spreads its wrapping layers to tones so frightening. And finely the circular rhythm of Who Goes There? goes from an ear to another with an approach which zigzags such as a fine stroboscopic thread to outlines eroded by the perfidious breaths of synths. Synths which can also weave some harmonious filets, just before that the last pulsations die in the crackling of a fire which resists to the intense gusts of the opening. Insane!! You bet your ears out! And its beneath angelic breaths that Who Goes There? switches off its superb rhythmic structure. Like what nothing is of neither rhythms nor of concrete melodies on PAINTINGS. A little as to punish our ears for having succumbed to the charms of Who Goes There?, Astral Beings Hatchery spreads its painting of cacophony under the synth breaths of ether which remind me of the weird paranormal moods of Klaus Schulze on Cyborg and Picture Music. Misanthropic Aliens ends PAINTINGS with a structure which is similar to Hidden Nooks of our Ego, except for the finale which embraces the frenzy of Who Goes There?. The intro is a sheet of micro-organic tones which pulse and bubble in a universe of sadness. This first phase (Whispers from the Ancient Permafrost) is purely organic while the 2nd one (Helpless Prisoners of fiction) espouses a more filmic ambient model with grave breaths, like lamentations of Buddhist trumpets, which get lost in the harmonies twisted by a synth and its spectral solos. These solos subdivide their caustic and ochred charms in a universe which abounds in astral reminiscences of Kitaro. The 3rd phase (Diplomacy Failed) explodes of a steady rhythm of which the ignition recalls Jean-Michel Jarre on Rendez-vous 4. This portion of PAINTINGS is the liveliest with a great approach of electronic rock molded in the symbolic rhythms from the creator of Oxygene.
The universe of Przemyslaw Rudz requires a lot of dexterity in its approach. And PAINTINGS explains why. Jean Michel Jarre, Pink Floyd, Kitaro and Klaus Schulze gathered in the same sound pattern can only be puzzling. Puzzling but on the whole mesmerizing with musical organicosmic and ambiospheric sheets which stir up in ambiences of which the charms awaken beautiful souvenirs of an era when grass and acid filled our personal experiences. Difficult to tame? Yes! But once our zone of comfort opens to new more audacious horizons, we delight ourselves in these experimental approaches which put constantly our ears on the alert. When EM surrounds itself with its most beautiful experimental assets, it gives a work which deserves that we stop there. A work such as PAINTINGS!
Sylvain Lupari (January 23rd, 2013) *****
Available at Generator pl