“Danceable but swirling slowly within cosmic, even ethereal, moods this album shows a wide range of EM sub-genres with this unique Stockman approach”
1 Monto's Production Line 8:44
2 Part of the Industry 6:28
3 Industrial Hauntings 8:28
4 Brains in Overdrive 9:19
5 In Time Delivery 7:10
6 The Factory Never Sleeps 8:41
7 No Supplies Left 7:23
8 No Supplies Left (Deep Mix) 4:41
(CD-r 60:28) (V.F.)
(Industrial Dance Music)
Some slow beatings of metallic wings are making the squeaking winds float lazily in a nest of reverberations to the parasitic brilliances. Their chants are caramelized by howling metal. The percussions which fall delicately awaken other chants. That of the synths. They are twisting and cooing with passion. In fact, it looks like they cry. Quietly Monto's Production Line extricates itself from its morphic membrane with a movement of sequences which gets closer by making its keys wriggling. Solos are always seraphic. Melodious, one would believe to hear Tangerine Dream. They float and daydream on a structure of rhythm which pounds nervously but without abandoning however its ambient shroud. Because if our feet drum on the spot; our winged arms follow the curves of the solos which feed the always rather ambient rhythm of Monto's Production Line. And it's true! Even if the percussions and sequences shake the moods. You will tell me that you hear a kind of Jean-Michel Jarre that I'll answer that you are not really very far! Static rhythms which pound in structures of dub-techno or of dub house rather morphics and which pull us towards a dance floor where we flutter on the spot as a bird trapped in a gust of circular wind, the music of Stockman makes a wide range of the sub-genres of EM which exchanged its clothes of ambiences for those a little more muscled of the cerebral dance. And this will never have been as tangible as with PART OF THE INDUSTRY, an album which brings us to the doors of a dark and creative dance music.
With its loops which spin in the heavinesses of a resonant line of pulsation, of a wave-like bass line and of percussions quite hampered to harpoon the rhythm, the title-track offers a floating structure of rhythm. Fragments of harmonies and hollow winds are grafted in a musical tension of which the perpetual restraint plunges us into a structure of rhythm which feeds its ambiguity in a pattern of ambient EM. There are indeed elements of tension, but nothing really explodes. Everything remains relatively ambient. This is like a storm where heterogeneous particles crowd in a long narrow tube. The walls eventually tremble with Industrial Hauntings. After a brief ambiosonic intro; pulsating sequences and hammering percussions draw up the lines of a rather heavy and lively rhythm. Electronic castanets are flavoring this linear rhythm of psychedelic fineries while that a powerful oscillatrice line draws a wide circular aura of goa, of trance. Stockman trades his clothes of passive electronic monk for those of a DJ who makes his crowd skip until exhaustion. The approaches are always so minimalist and the ambiences remain always so cosmic, except that Godfried Stockmans strives to graft parallel elements which will conquer as much your taste of throwing yourself on a dance floor than to listen to. At the beginning my ears were rather timid; we are quite far from Berlin School or from ambient music here, except that the main beat, very lively, and the lines of rhythms, always rather variable, make that one eventually liked it. And not just a little. The phenomenon also applies to the powerful, but less heavy, The Factory Never Sleeps which reminds me the music of the psychedelic trance of the 90's. And what to say about Brains in Overdrive? Its introduction is simply delicious. Sequenced keys skip in an effect of cascade in order to drum like touches of piano in the jingles of clapperboards. The movement remains ambient and jumps (hiccups) constantly under a sonic sky multicolored of thousand complaints, as of one thousand noises of a futuristic city on the point to fall asleep. Except that we do not sleep! Cybernetic gurglings invite each other in the static dance. They excite the passive nuances and guide Brains in Overdrive towards a heavy oscillating structure which waves lustfully beneath a brilliant mixture of percussions and bass sequences. We shall crack for In Time Delivery, a real FM kind of track. The intro is very ethereal. And want it or not, these synth lines and their seraphic signings prickle the brain. And then the rhythm comes. It falls. Oscillating on sequences to vertical zigzags, hesitating on changeable and slamming percussions, it gets wet for a suave down-tempo which sounds like a kind of slow drum n bass where are cooing the solos and plotting a cabalistic ambience. We fall for it from the first listening. The imprint of Jarre is all over the percussions! Heavy pulsations, flying percussions (and slamming), spheroidal sequences, automated dialogues and oscillations which roll like some slow sonic waves; No Supplies Left mixes all these ingredients to offer a solid vibrating techno with nice small ambient phases and cybernetic harmonies which give a futuristic approach to a music which is not unknown to us. Its deep-mix mixes cosmic moods in a movement of gradual trance, but not total, which burn the fast and nervous pulsations, as well as these floating riffs which rock the rambling synthesized harmonies.
The strength of Stockman is to mix well an ambient and cosmic approach in rhythms which are more human. Bang-bang and tsitt-tsitt are well measured, the cybernetic dialogues are not too much exaggerated and the percussions click just enough in order to not want to close the sound. The melodious portion, as well as the ambient phases, is splendidly lying in good synth solos which remind the harmonious tones of the Dream, analog period. In fact, PART OF THE INDUSTRY strengthens the approaches of Kraftwerk, Element 4, Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre in an envelope of more contemporary trance. A beautiful buffet which feeds well the ears without asking too many efforts to the feet.
Sylvain Lupari (October 25th, 2014) ***½**
Available at SynGate Bandcamp