“A stunning mix of analog EM and a futuristic soft jazz à la Blade Runner”
1 Test Transmission 4.20
2 Entropy Is Just... 8.54
3 ...a Seven Letter Word 9.27
4 Three Players in an Artificial Landscape 2.44
5 XyloCity Part I 10.54
6 XyloCity Part II 9.50
7 Bath 23.51
8 Temporarily Not Available 3.54
Fax Label PS08/98
(CD-r 73:54) (V.F.)
(Electronica, Ambiant, Berlin School)
It's with absolute pleasure that I will try to introduce you into the eclectic musical world of Spyra. Long regarded as a possible successor of the more contemporary side of Klaus Schulze, Wolfram Der Spyra ignores all conventions to offer very colorful works where the unexpected meets the brilliant inspirations of this superb musician. INVISIBLE FIELDS does not escape this rule! Spyra delivers an opus with an astonishing mixture of analogue electronic music and futuristic soft jazz à la Blade Runner, as well as the long waves of synthesized transmissions. Moreover, if there is a weakness in INVISIBLE FIELDS it's at this level, the approach remains a bit syncretic. The album is too varied to appreciate the whole thing on one listening. It's rather an album that we discover a little bit at a time and according to our mood. There are titles that blend in with all the sets, while for others, you have to build this set.
It's under the tunes of a heavy Kraftwerk with both derailed and highly robotic voice samplings that Test Transmission begins. A dance-floor title with a sequencers and a heavy bass line on a hypnolunatic tempo filled with a decor madeof the sublime fluidity of synth lines. Entropy Is Just a Seven Letter Word is a beautiful piece with very jazz mood that melts in the ear. The percussion and the bass flow on a sensual keyboard while the tone and the synth pads are prescriptive to a melancholy that we want to preserve. Subsequently, great music is hitting on us with the short but surprisingly seductive Three Players in an Artificial Landscape. An electro-acoustic title where the flute bewitches with an astonishing lucidity.
XyloCity is, in my opinion, the update of a Berlin School structure. A Berlin School refreshed by a cosmic vision that oscillates between a spasmodic hovering and slight minimalism rhythms that progress with a well dosed ferocity. The second part is more furious and tempers in a very libertine jazz ambience where the percussions awaken a piano/synth with hints on a vicious bass. Quietly the tempo fades to let slip a superb adagio of glockenspiels xylophone keys resonating honeyly in the ears. This first part of INVISIBLE FIELDS is simply great and will appeal to fans of traditional EM as well as lovers of soft techno marinated in ambient music. Bath is the epic title and the rough path to this album, both for the time and its dimension with tetanized moods with a taste of mettalic citrus. Acid and enveloping, it starts on fluids Martenot mixed to samples of virulent thunderstorms. Quietly, the movement gets stabilize to float with a soothing slowness before continuing its journey through the mysterious and indomitable sound meanders which portrays an artistic as well as an emotional paradox. The soft Temporarily Not Available closes on a tender melancholic note this beautiful album of contemporary EM that we hear too rarely but that we must tame gradually.
Sylvain Lupari (September 11th, 2007) *****