“MurInsel Vol.2, an album mainly focused on the Chill Out and Lounge ambiances that is good to hear on the edge of a pool on a sunny afternoon”
1 Summer Night 7:31
2 Nachtflug 5:45
3 Magic of Light 7:11
4 Blue 5:43
5 Daydreamer 9:30
6 Abendrot 6:01
7 Reflections 5:56
(CD-R/DDL 47:40) (V.F.)
(Chill Out, Relaxing beats & Melodies)
Summer Night begins with nervous percussions trample on a Chill Out structure. Synth pads, flowing like cream in a café, surround this mid-tempo that Stan Dart sprinkles of good electronic effects including harmonic pads with a strange voice. Arpeggios in glass tinkle in a melodious approach carried by these violins that blew on the dance anthems in the late 60's. Summer Night sets the tone for this latest album by Stan Dart; MURINSEL Vol.2, an album mainly focused on the Chill Out and Lounge ambiances that is good to hear on the edge of a pool on a sunny afternoon. We are here in Wave Division of SynGate. So, we have an album focused on accessible music with good rhythms that are easy to put in the ears and melodies not too complicated to remember. The panorama is lunar where tunes are always tinkling melodies that evaporate in dense orchestral effects, the simulacrum of dance music. And if you thought that the source had gone extinct on MurInsel Vol.1, there was probably some music following this festival that was held on the island of Murinsel in Austria in July 2018. The proof lies in this MURINSEL Vol.2, an ideal album for beautiful summer days with friends.
Nachtflug follows with a very slow approach that almost flirts with a cosmic slow tempo. Everything is there; chords with tinkling of glass, astral mist and a keyboard in mode talk that does like a very contemporary Robert Schroeder. Magic of Light is that kind of title that hooks our mind and our feet from the first listen. The beat comes out of Nachtflug's anesthetic mists and wakes us up a bit with an electronic dance music that jumps on rather sober percussions and a bass line whose short echo is like a stomach that gurgles with a hunger for notes that fall with a beautiful harmonic fragility. The rhythm comes alive a little, falling into a pace of dance of the 90's, kind of Let's Dance by Bowie, and the synth lights up with an ethereal voice of a certain astral goddess known as Synthia. The play of percussions is quite creative, even if it's discreet, on this title whose bass has all the assets, except for the very lunar melody. Blue is a morphic ballad with wooden clatter percussions slamming on cement, circadian pulsations and lascivious bass that whisper us its sensuality under harmonic stars. A saxophonist from the Moon breathes his melancholic words while making a duel with wooshh, waashh and wiishh from elsewhere. After the saxophone, it's the turn of a violin, with a Chinese spirit, to disturb our senses in Daydreamer. Arrhythmic palpitations, slamming percussions and others in down-tempo mode set a slow rhythm with these arpeggios still undecided about their roles in MURINSEL Vol.2. The slow laments of the violin go against the current of the percussions that move like the legs and palms of ducks under water. There is something intense in this title. Abendrot follows with manual percussion, like Bongos, drumming a light structure covered by a mist from the New Age territories. Arpeggios always tinkle with these evanescent melodies. They end up forming a duet with a guitar that breathes a little bluesy melody which is flirting with the borders of Easy Listening. Reflections is probably the most electronic title here. It's a good electronic rock sitting on a nervous basis with good percussions and a good keyboard game. Richard Hasiba throws these synth solos whose Software perfumes fill our ears and remind us that Stan Dart also knows how to make EM of the New Berlin School style, for having heard him with Alien Nature.
Sylvain Lupari (July 22nd, 2019) **¾***
Available on SynGate's Bandcamp