“A first album loaded of rhythms! Powerful ones with hammering and wild sequences”
1 Scuderia 5:42
2 DownForce 6:20
3 Maranello 6:17
4 SuperSonic 5:30
5 Drag 4:37
6 Turbulence 6:12
7 Stall 4:28
8 Modena 6:17
9 AeroDynamics 6:42
10 Falcon 4:35
11 AirFlow 5:30
12 Lift 5:55
(CD/DDL 68:27) (V.F.)
(Synth-Rock, E_Rock, EDM)
A Ferrari on Mars! Is it appealing to you? Syncopated and dynamic rhythms which roll over good sequences and also surprisingly catchy electronic percussions. Are you still interested? Here is AERODYNAMICS, the first album from Dutch synthesist Synth NL. Newcomer on Groove nl, Michel Van Osenbruggen is a musician known in the Ron Boots circle. He's an energetic guy with influences from Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre, the more commercial one, in a style that is split between avant-garde synth-pop and EDM, acronym for electronic dance music. He likes to explore different rhythmic avenues with a flair for music of the future ideal for alien movies. And I might tell you from the start, you won't find any complex sequence patterns or long atmospheric passages here. No, Synth.NL is also from the school of cosmic and electronic rock a la Moonbooter. So, rhythm, a lot of rhythms with big percussions on unbridled sequencer patterns and good well-structured melodies.
With a track like Scuderia, it's not surprising to hear the tires biting the void as an introduction. Sound effects fizzle, much like if this race were taking place on a planet full of carnivorous plants, and percussions getting activate. A line of circular sequences wind like a long stroboscopic filament on this percussive fauna that leads the rhythm to a melodious and catchy phase with a spacey synth that encircles a musical setting worthy of JMJarre's latest albums. Scuderia, and its catchy and percussive rhythm, is like the 12 tracks that follow on this first album of Synth NL. An album with a beautiful rhythmic diversity like this kind of cosmic break-dance that is Downforce and its numerous tchak- tchak- tchak of a DJ in lack of originality. It's nevertheless catchy with a good spasmodic flow. Maranello scrolls a rhythm composed of collages which jumps like a disarticulated puppet, before pushing the foot on the gas pedal and offering a techno-pop with a synth and its singer effects. SuperSonic proposes a rhythm of the future whose flow, as its ambient phases, are surrounded by good percussive effects sometimes organic. Spectral, the melody is catchy here. Like on Drag which is part of the good melodies fixed on a down-tempo and its psybient flora. A good track created with a lot of intelligence.
Rhythm a bit bouncy on a pool of percussions too nervous, Turbulence also proposes a melody hummed by the synth. A smart synth which let slip some good synth solos. Here, they are slow and languorous! The track is just a bit long, like many are into AERODYNAMICS. Stall is a very nice down-tempo with futuristic jazz scents. The percussion playing is absolutely divine on this track. Modena proposes a spasmodic EDM style with effects of racing cars running in indifference. The rhythm is of breakdance style with long ambient phases. The synth is also very powerful. It's the kind of track that deserves to be listened often. And it is not the only one of its kind in this album. The title-track is one of the beautiful jewels of this first Synth NL album. Its introduction is tied to a bass line with reverb-laden sinuosities, and percussions that fizzes faster than the ear can get. The intensity kicks up a notch to explode into a convulsive EDM which is haloed of more good synth solos. AeroDynamics also dives into more relaxed phases before returning with a logical continuation to the last abandoned structure. A good track that exploits wonderfully its almost 7 minutes. Falcon offers an introduction with samples of NASA voices before taking a turn to 90's Techno Pop. Between its convulsive phases and those a little more ambient AirFlow remains a track that turns around these two axes to present synth-guitar solos. It's a lot of beats for a dance of zombies fed with Jell-O! A spectral opening that plunges into a big cosmic rock well hit by drums that sound like the real thing and a bass-pulse line pulsing like a super excited heart, Lift concludes this album whose visions of dances die in a panoply of rhythms lost in their ambitions. And there is more than one in this album...
But it doesn't matter! Complex in its often-convoluted rhythm structures but damn efficient in the art of melody, AERODYNAMICS is a solid Synth NL debut album. Michel Van Osenbruggen presents here an album that pitches between EDM and some moderate techno zones with space race ambiences which encircle syncopated and often unbridled rhythms, as well as rhythms that we can dance on while others make us float between two lanes of racing. If you like an intelligent music that strikes with audacity on sequencers with neurotic patterns, AERODYNAMICS is thus made for you.
Sylvain Lupari (November 17th, 2007) ***¾**
Available at Groove nl