“Josephine the Mouse Singer follows the main line of the last works from the Dream, in particular the Sonic Poem Series”
1 The Four White Wooden Horses 6:08
2 The Bleeding Angel 4:00
3 Center of Now 6:33
4 Josephine the Mouse Singer 8:28
5 Arcangelo Corelli's La Folia 7:39
Eastgate 069CD
(Cup-Disc 32:48) (V.F.)
(Theatrical e-rock)
Exit the Eastgate years! Long live Quantum years! Unless a situational turnaround, JOSEPHINE THE MOUSE SINGER should be the very last thing to pop out of these famous years when the income of Tangerine Dream will never have mopped the expenses. And this in spite of all those reeditions, the live albums, the so best-of, Booster and finally the Cup-Discs. Voices in the Net establishes that this JOSEPHINE THE MOUSE SINGER is the 7th C-D of this edition. I counted 10, but I am rather going to come round to this excellent reference site on Tangerine Dream. We speak, we chat! But what about the music of this last Cup-Disc? Distributed in limited edition (there is still some left in the Eastgate factories) JOSEPHINE THE MOUSE SINGER was initially offered during the European Phaedra Farewell Tour 2014 and follows at the same time the main line of the last works from the Dream, in particular the Sonic Poem Series, being another poem of Franz Kafka.
The Four White Wooden Horses establishes a mood of darkness deliciously tamed with an obsessing slightly chaotic rhythm. A rhythm which merges its erratic jolts into the tails of unbridled movements of sequences as well as ones with organic tones. Just as well mesmerizing, the melodic membrane leaves all the room to the rhythm and frees delicate evasive chords while that a kind of African voice is singing some delicate tribal hymns of which the certain charms are merging to absent voices and very nostalgic synth breezes. This voice returns on the title-track which presents an ambient intro with synth lines which seem to draw a horizon to the colors of our imagination and which are clubbed by good percussions. Gradually the rhythm of Josephine the Mouse Singer is structuring itself around notes of a very pensive acoustic guitar. This rhythm stamped of melancholy adopts gradually the approach of a gallop from a solitary cowboy where we see the rider of deserts fading at the horizon. A little bit as the ending of a western movie where the credits unfold before our dreamy eyes. I quite enjoyed these two tracks, just as The Bleeding Angel which is a beautiful and very melodious down-tempo with a wrapping veil of melancholy. The effect of crescendo assures that our feelings follow the very poignant curve of this beautiful black ballad. We stay in the line of ballads with Center of Now. A kind of ambient ballad, even morphic, which offers a rather nebulous approach and a structure which is complicated enough. There is too much in it to highlight anything that sounds appealing. It's like having too much to eat and not having something great to gulp. I do believe that one has to like the intense and black classical moods to appreciate to its full measure Edgar Froese's arrangements on Arcangelo Corelli's La Folia, which is a music written by Arcangelo Corelli. I cannot really pronounce, absolutely not knowing classical, but I found the arrangements, as well as these sequences which revolve and flicker all around this subtle movement of crescendo, as incisive as a descent in an alienation.
We can't find anything wrong on this new (last?) Cup-Disc, which would easily have been able to be of use as springboard to this continuity of Franz Kafka's works put on music in Tangerine Dream's Sonic Poem Series. And I am fascinated by this doggedness, this perseverance of Edgar Froese to continue his work of creation. If it's true that we can criticize the orientations which he imposed to this cult band, we cannot deny that he has a great deal of talent and that his impact is as much necessary than it was essential in the development of EM. In fact Edgar, I would just want to tell you thank you... And long life to these years Quantum!
Sylvain Lupari (September 29th, 2014) *****