“Another sonic river where Psybient will never have been so dense and so attractive”
1 Snova I Snova 6:34 2 Unyt 7:31 3 Quantum Evo 6:47 4 Ne Viden 8:35 5 Svet 6:46 6 Klinostat 8:00 7 Parsec 7:03 8 Delta-V 6:45 9 Nadezhda 9:00 10 Turgenev 3:02 Ultimae Records | inre085 (CD/DDL 69:49) (V.F.) (Psybient & smooth beats)
Would you be surprises if I mention that I had some difficulties taming this album? And would you be more surprise if I said now that it won't get out of my CD player? Scann-Tec is Vladislav Isaev. A Moscow musician who explores the paths of EM since the beginning of 2000 when he got a MIDI synth. Since then he has made some E.P. and made a few appearances in festivals of Chill Out music while he also wrote ambient music. A collector of tones and sounds of life, he breathes into his music a crowd of samplings which leads him to the Psybient territories. In 2010 he produces a very first album, Facial Memories, which reaches a striking success among the fans of the genre while at the same time his music starts to appear on some compilations of the Ultimae Records label. In 2013 he will present his first album on the Lyons based label with Morpheus | Live at Hypnotic Night 4. UNYT appears in the tubs about 3 years farther. And how to define this UNYT?
Well the adventure begins with Snova I Snova. Cracklings and static noises of a radio station which refuses to pop out of the waves invade our ears. The voice of a Russian presenter eventually gets out from these radio waves limbos while a wide strip of synthesized waves roams such as a radioactive threat. Palpitations escape from it. They beat an arrhythmic pace whereas the synth lines spit a reverberating poison. As these lines rumble, jingles peck at the atmospheres. One would say an Amerindian rhythm which refuses to go out of its shell. And, after a great two minutes of psybient, the rhythm hatches into another approach with sequences of which the brilliance of tones remind the universe of Tangerine Dream in Wavelenght. Torn between pulsations / palpitations which mutter and these crystal clear sequences which wave like been exposed to the sun waves, the rhythm of Snova I Snova is as static as a dance of frogs in a rib cage of which the heart always looks for its water of life. Here we are! You have the signature of Scann-Tec. Each of the 9 titles which follow brings its rhythmic vision in a universe of sounds which suits very well to the model of the label from Lyons. The title-track floods our ears of a sonic mat so dense that it hides a structure of rhythm which hobbles of its irregular pulsations. This envelope of unstable rhythm also hides a ghost melody which hangs on to some effects of electric guitar. The more we move forward and the more we feel that the rhythm is trying to explode. The structures of rhythm here live in the hazards of the intermittence. They tumble down in cascades in order to vanish into lapses of indefinite time and search again for the survival under other forms. Like in Quantum Evo which offers a good up-tempo interrupted by ambiosonic passages of a so incredible wealth just as its diversity. In these moments, it's the melodies which strike us in the heart. As this synth which snivels around the 4th minute. The intros and outros are sculptured in atmospheres rich of elements which seem like being the genesis of paranoia.
There might be exceptions here, like Ne Viden where the noises and the rhythm lasciviously lively conjugate their efforts in a fascinating psybient ballad. The percussions here are a great work of art. It looks like some of them reach the wall of this barrage of sounds which surrounds the album in order to create a pond of multi-sound circles which bursts of abstract colors, decorating so this acoustics six-strings which tries to gather the bits of its melody split up in this fauna of tones and rebel percussions. The adventure of Ne Viden eventually ends in a good down-tempo. Although we feel the curve of the rhythms becoming more accentuated, there will be never explosions. At best some implosions! After a slightly more dynamic structure, and a clearly more spectral one, the rhythm of Svet switches off its beautiful growth in a layer of organic atmospheres. The pattern of TD sequencing reappears in Klinostat which is a good down-tempo on which the static swiftness of the rhythm inflates like a batrachian on the edge to explode. The piano scatters here the notes of this ghostly melody which is several times roaming here and there around UNYT. Parsec is more a kind of up-tempo with movements of jerks interrupted in a fauna of tones as well hallucinating than attractive. The pieces of wood which quarrel between the phases of atmospheres are an object of seduction here. Our ears being flooded with beatings and pulsations, as heavy as muffled, it's with a certain satisfaction that they greet the peaceful Delta-V. Even if its last 2 minutes converge on an approach of techno for stoned zombies.
Between the rhythm, and its various facets, and the atmospheres, and its multiple sound charms, Nadezhda concludes this album a little bit difficult to tame, so much the sound fauna and its elements of psybient eat these structures of rhythm which bicker constantly to seduce. Like in the last 2 minutes of Nadezhda whose finale serves as introduction to the very ambient Turgenev where Vlad Kopp tells a short story of the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. So is made UNYT! Another sonic path where the Psybient kind will never have been so dense and so attractive. In brief, to the greatness of the soundscapes of Ultimae Records!
Sylvain Lupari (July 6th, 2016) ***¼**
Available at Ultimae Records Bandcamp