“True to himself, Don C Tyler weaves here an abysmal work with a cinematographic approach inspired by a rather pessimistic futuristic vision”
1 Oneiromancy 6:28
2 Survey Pilot 7:20
3 The Black Vale 5:32
4 Starhenge 8:22
5 Infinity Calculus 5:44
6 Transeye 6:16
7 The Outer Plateau 8:16
(Dark Industrial ambient)
Second Remote Vision album in 2019, THE OUTER PLATEAU follows the tangents of dark cinematic and atmospheric music that flirt with the visions of the apocalyptic psychedelism of the first opus of Don C Tyler's project, Into the Light published in 2018. Except that here, the sound has changed of color, going from dark ebony to industrial copper whose sieved particles throw yellowish sulfur in the color of the sounds.
That can be heard from the first waves shivering on the shores of a sea that flirts with the depths of the Cosmos. Waves with foam of seraphic voices breaking between synthesized pads open the radioactive pathways of Oneiromancy and its sound effects which hesitate between an organic and a psychedelic life. These water blades roar on sharp reefs, dividing the wave of sounds between computer chirps and layers with iodized sounds. Playing on several fronts, Remote Vision blows hot and cold by incorporating arpeggios tingling with musicality at rhythms forged in percussive sequences that blow like unreal trains behind a curtain of orchestrations waving like the ambient waltzes of Vangelis. My ears are already hungry at such a feast. Especially since tropical sparrows chirp in a cave where the breezes change into astral waves to begin Survey Pilot. Sweet ambient voices are added to this decor when a line of shimmering arpeggios sculpts a floating beat which undulates with nice effects of strobe jerks in a vision as rhythmic as harmonic. It's like a light ballet chiselled with iodine where the percussive arpeggios mock the pulsations by running in single file like ballerinas on a lake of fire. Survey Pilot transits to an atmospheric phase before returning with greater speed. Intense with its apocalyptic vision, its twisted reverberations and its muffled explosions, The Black Vale is a title of cinematic atmospheres à la Blade Runner. Starhenge launches another kind of futuristic vision with a heap of synth layers which intertwine the growing anger of the wooshh and the waashh. Delicate lost arpeggios emerge here and there in this intense atmospheric title. Infinity Calculus follows in a less sinister vision with crystals bursting in a dark sea agitated by slow underwater eddies. We even hear Tibetan bells ringing in this ocean floor. Transeye is one of the darkest titles in the Remote Vision repertoire. It's a slow symphony of dying drones that intertwine their buzzing in a sound mass where nothing filters. Not even a musical glow! The Outer Plateau concludes this progressive ambient album with another structure of heavy and dark atmospheres whose progression presents rashes of the sequencer behind the whirring breaths of sieved sound particles.
You have to know and love the music of Remote Vision, or the dark industrial ambient style, to be overwhelmed by the sound waves of THE OUTER PLATEAU. True to himself, Don C Tyler weaves here an abysmal work with a cinematographic approach inspired by a rather pessimistic futuristic vision. A bit like if the machines had replaced all human presence, except the DNA of melancholy and of hope. As it can be quite the opposite too! And that's the beauty of EM where the artist's imagination is at the service of our perception.
Sylvain Lupari (February 22nd, 2020) ***½**
Available at Exosphere Music Bandcamp