“Eclipse is a solid album of tribal trance with an amazing use of percussions, strings and winds instruments which build wonderful exotic vibes”
1 Anima 8:50 2 Calling Down the Sun 8:56 3 Feather and Claw 10:33 4 Stone Arch 6:10 5 Shadow Medicine 9:15 6 Nomadic Dreaming 10:47 7 Changing Seasons 8:36 8 A Lonely Path 6:33 Spotted Peccary Music | SPM 9085 (CD/DDL 69:40) (V.F.) (Tribal ambient soundscapes)
Hoarse, buzzing and powerful! Synth lines rise from the West and rage with a handful of mooing, Anima wakes up with some fascinating hummed murmurs, panting of didgeridoo and superb frame drums. The synth lines try as best as possible to pierce out, to say the least to cover, this furious tribal trance with reflections of tranquility. Waste of time! The chants of the desert don't even succeed putting to sleep these fascinating and very lively tom-toms. And this is what my ears and my feet want the most; hear roaring out the percussions which burst out on tense skins. Pursuing this incredible odyssey in the most intriguing aspects on Earth, the duet Morris & Frore brings us towards the fathomless beauties of an eclipse. Between these wild horizons and these states of meditation, the music of ECLIPSE knocks with a tone as lively as the colors of an eclipse and of the wild side of the various observation posts in the wildlife. Here, one would imagine to be in full southern jungle with a sonic flora painted by thousand tropical delights and where the dominant percussions tame the bewitching approach of the synths which shine with beautiful colors, like the tail of a god peacock. Calling Down the Sun is simply exotic with its lascivious dance introduced by the heat of the synths. The rhythms around this album decuple the exuberant approach of the music. The flutes are as much silky than the shadows of the synths, as in the very beautiful Feather and Claw where they sing and even speak to us.
This 2nd get-together of this duet who are sculptor of sounds and ambiences is as much rich in tones and in allochthones percussions, like in the very good Blood Moon. We find the same diversity in the choice of instruments with didgeridoos, Amerindian and transversal flutes and other instruments of which the charms are entwined with those of synths perfumed by essences of the deserts and of tribal bewitching spirits. The percussions are the key of this album, like in Blood Moon, with rhythms of shamanic trances supplied by djembes and frame drums while the sequencer and the synths add superb percussive effects. Stone Arch is a title sculpted around gluttonous elements of ambiences which will abrade your walls. Intense, if one likes a vertical avalanche of sounds! Shadow Medicine exploits an ancestor tribal rhythm with effects of flutes and especially some sharp synth breezes which seem to have pierce the sides of a mountain with about ten very tiny holes. The rhythm of Nomadic Dreaming is alive as a musical meeting between Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf. The synth layers and the effects of an enchanted forest temperate finally the drawling percussions and the very good percussive effects of Shane Morris on Changing Seasons. This flora of sounds is a pure delight for those who feed of it! A Lonely Path offers a music as much mysterious and uncomfortable as its title indicates it. It's like walking through the woods on an evening of a quiet moon. You know what I mean? And it's a big strength in this album; stick a musical image on the idea behind each title. Among other big strengths, let's note this symbiosis between the electronic elements, I found that Frore (Paul Casper) has a lot of imagination in his palette of sound colors and of sound effects, which are very creative at some points, and the frenzy of the percussions which make a beautiful balance between a more acoustic approach versus the electronic elements, especially the line of bass, propagated by the synths and the sequencer. These synths are rich in emotions while the sequencer is more discreet. The lively rhythms, the fluty melodies and the effects of voices are also small traps of seduction. In brief, ECLIPSE is a solid album of tribal trance and of tribal ambiences which finds as much its reason with a good pair of earphones than freely throughout our loudspeakers in our listening room. A rather rare phenomenon in the industry that the Spotted Peccary label masters since moons. Solid and intense, from Anima to A Lonely Path!
Sylvain Lupari (November 15th, 2017) *****
Available at Spotted Peccary Bandcamp