“A powerful ambient album that will surely please the lovers of ambient cosmic music”
1 Distant Stars 20:08
2 Trajectory 12:12
3 Le Songe du Singe 15:08
4 Voyage Through Darkness 15:04
5 Netherworlds 4:57
6 Entering the Temple of Haruka Kawagishi 8:05
(CD/DDL 75:43) (V.F.)
(Ambient Cosmic Music)
Here is some very beautiful ambient and floating music! Far from his tribal inspirations, Rudy Adrian plunged deep inside himself to offer an album with very introspective emotions to make us travel among stars and other stellar constellations on a musical background rich in subtle modulations. DISTANT STARS is a slow astral symphony where the New-Zealand synthesist molds his emotions through dense synthesized and mellotron layers where choirs, sidereal breaths and heavy metallic buzzing movements are next to the superb impulses of Steve Roach and Michael Stearns.
A distant cosmic breath opens Distant Stars. A wind formed in the galactic penumbra is propelled by a synth with dark and sober layers. Just like what happens on Adrian's 13th opus, Distant Stars offers a slow astral journey where the movements are sculpted in the oblong modulations of a synth that mixes superbly well the hypnotic strings and drifting choirs. Far from being monotonous, the intro is filled with soft chiming keys that shimmer with a cosmic gravity. It's almost like if you can hear the stars. Fine modulations redirect the course of the layers that float and weave among shimmering keys and dark blasts, occasionally struck by fine explosions plunging Distant Stars into a climax of cinematic tension. Around the 9th minute, the track becomes clearer but remains just as atonic. The synth layers are clearer and give off a less anxious vibe, giving off a 2nd part that reflects a galactic journey that began painfully. Certainly emotional orchestrations appear here and there, surrounding the title-track in a constant emotional duality that reaches its climax with powerful synth layers screaming its fear of the unknown in a delicious musical perfume that reminds one of the ultimate work of a cosmic journey; Michael Stearns' Chronos. Trajectory is just as heavy as the opening track. A long music piece without beats where the synth layers float in a cosmic universe whose fright accompanies the unknown. A synth that gives off a linear movement crossed by subtle modulations, both on the sound level and on the impulse of its structure. A structure soaked with metallic sounds that draw the movement of a space shuttle that wanders in search of a land. Le Songe du Singe dips in the same ambient atmospheres as the first 2 tracks, except that the movement waltzes with complacency in a nascent luminosity. A sonic effervescence divides the nebulosity of this intensely dark, if cosmic, work. Synth surges waltz in harmonies with layers of mellotron drenched of dreamy, poetic sources and a liberating choir. A superb piece of ambient music where emotions are felt and lived on edge.
Voyage Through Darkness is a tenebrous cosmic litany where the synth layers bubble and buzz in the confines of a metallic universe that gives off an astonishing perfume of paranoia with its multiple layers that get entangled in a strange waltz without impulses where only the fantasies can paint the structures. A long track that contains superb musical winks to the complex ambient universe of Steve Roach and where beauty explodes with its superb fluty mellotrons that accompany a movement that has become more limpid and superbly more ethereal. Here again, Rudy Adrian fascinates by the way he pulls his modulations out of the dark pools he weaves in each introduction. Soft and honeyed, Netherworlds floats in a poetic sound universe that is in contrast to the heaviness of the first 4 tracks. In fact, one could argue that Netherworlds and Entering the Temple of Haruka Kawagishi are the rest of the turmoil that surrounds the gloomy aspect of this astral journey with intense electronic sounds. Farther from the stars and closer to the Earth, these last 2 tracks take us into the delicious tribal world of Rudy Adrian. He is the only one to draw all his musical canvases.
DISTANT STARS is a powerful atmospheric album that will surely please the lovers of ambient, soaring and cosmic music. A superb album where Rudy Adrian's emotions abound in a universe bubbling with atmospheric dualities, even if the Cosmos is a world of coldness and fright. Strong feelings well supported on a well structured album like in a long departure towards the unknown of space.
Sylvain Lupari (October 22nd, 2010) *****
Available at Spotted Peccary Music