“A much easier EM easy to tame with soft-tempos and piano lines that are quite alike, this Seaside scatters its best moments in a too long double CD set”
1 Waves 8:33 2 Seaside 6:25 3 Remembering Paris 6:45 4 Blue Sky 6:17 5 Starlight II 8:43 6 Stellar Night 8:34 7 Time's Right 8:03 8 It's a Rainy Day (feat. Mrs. King) 7:03 9 Nightlife 8:19 10 Deckard's Party 6:32 11 Time's Right Single Mix Bonus 4:39 12 Replicant's Dream 11:05 13 Empty Room 9:19 14 Memories of Tomorrow 8:21
15 Distant Life 5:25 16 Thannhauser Gate 11:11 17 Fading (Away) 3:30 SynGate Wave CD-R SD07
(CD-r/DDL 128:51) (V.F.) (Cinematic ambiences)
If you enjoyed Midnight, I hear no reason for it to be different with SEASIDE. For this second collaboration, the duo Dart & Dorricott does in the original by offering an impressive collection of 16 original titles which float in the perfumes of an Electronica easy to tame, without industrial nor psybient artifices. In short, a music to which one listens to so well that even my wife loved it! Proposed as much in CD-r as in download, the music is rich of its ambiances with a production in 24 bits which does justice to another chapter of the film Blade Runner. CD1 is entitled; The Human Side and proposes 10 tracks whose cinematographic vision observes the evolution of Deckard and Rachael between both films.
Waves sets the tone to this filmic vision with noises of waves which get clinging to the rocks. The tone of the synth is quite Vangelis with beams that come and go with a certain degree of intensity. This setting allows the introduction of the piano and its solitary notes which are filled of nostalgia. Soft percussions structure an ambient rhythm, caressed by layers of voices. The piano clings. The tone is in the Lounge genre and depicts pretty well the upcoming moods of SEASIDE. Dominating, the piano of Mark Dorricott is of all the fights. Whether acoustic and electronic, it weaves lines of harmonies, often melancholic and sometimes more joyful, in sonic panoramas which breathe through different forms of rhythms. All very accessible between soft-tempo and a very reasonable down-tempo. Easy Listening, New Age and Sunday morning music are in the spotlight in this double album where the melodies abound over good arrangements. Stan Dart has grasped the melodious dimension of his musical companion and uses it wisely throughout SEASIDE. Remembering Paris is a very good example. In doing so, it gives a more unidimensional approach to the music which goes very rarely to more complex tracks. There are good moments of ambience which are very cinematic-intense. I think of Starlight II, Stellar Night and Time's Right which are the highlights of The Human Side. Deckard's Party is the most danceable title of SEASIDE. And again, it remains very sober.
CD 2, The Replicant Side, is much better. I don't understand why the shortened version of Time's Right since it's a solid piece of music. I like the Ambient House style in Replicant's Dream. The introduction is very orchestral with a well felt zest of cosmos. The arrangements are top notch! We slowly arrive at the rhythm, but once our legs have gotten in, difficult to stop! Empty Room is a nice lunar slow-tempo. The rhythm is lascivious, the bass line is to dream with its way to cling to the rhythmic melody and the piano notes crystallize a melody as evasive as a dream. Memories of Tomorrow sounds very much heard in the best moments of The Human Side. It's beautiful, but...Distant Life is another good title woven on a long line of riffs and where the piano makes clink notes and harmonies in a sonic water crystallized of prisms. Its notes are of a piercing blue and throw spears of emotivity in a race against time which ends in a heavy and dense orchestral rock. It's very intense and it matches some of the good times in the album Midnight. Thannhauser Gate is the jewel of SEASIDE. The music is very intense and dominated by the multilayer harmonies of this piano which seduces both by the agility of Mark Dorricott's fingers, the time in the rhythm and in the emotional power of the arrangements. Fading (Away) is a remixed vision of Tears in the Rain, much like in the movie of 2018.
I guess that one single-CD album would have do the job!.But then again, the titles chosen must be the good ones! And that depends on the points of view. If you like easy music to whistle, with melodies and structures of soft-tempo guided by piano lines which in the end sound a little bit alike, I believe you will have no trouble with this album. It's nice and well done, I can't argue with that. The sound depth is quite good too, but we are quite far from a progressive and complex EM with breathtaking turnarounds. There are good times and again, they are developed in a lunar and seraphic vision.
Sylvain Lupari (January 25th, 2019) *****
Available at SynGate's Bandcamp