“This is a great album which is impregnated of Edgar's melancholic softness”
1 Climbing Mount Inasa 10:56
2 In the Cherry Blossom Hills 5:15
3 Mystery of Life & Death 13:33
4 Dreaming in a Kyoto Train 7:00
5 Ayumi's Butterflies 4:59
6 Presentiment 4:05
7 11:02 AM 10:51
Eastgate 019
(CD/DDL 54:00) (V.F.)
(Light E-Rock)
After Pinnacles, released in 1983, Edgar Froese fell into a heavy hyperborean coma. Leaving it to his much more creative peers, he rode the wave of Poland and Le Parc without really knowing where he was wandering or going. More than 20 years later, he resurrected himself with an epic and historical work entitled Five Atomic Seasons, recalling the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. SUMMER IN NAGASAKI is the second volume of this cultural order from Mr. H.T., a wealthy Japanese businessman who is also a surviving witness of this nuclear attack.
Like the 1st part, the opus has to last 54 minutes. And it's with steps falling from a void that the first keys of Climbing Mount Inasa resound on a melodious synth with uncertain breaths. The sequencer stirs in a hypnotic spiral, striking a deja vu tune on a progressive tangent. By tiny flakes, the keys jump like a crackling fire to swirl as a musical spectrum with a thousand prisms. Fluid the melody escapes to pour in an ambient passage with muffled metallic sound effects where superb percussions hammer a rhythm of an obsessive sensuality. Already the ears are conquered and are lulled by In the Cherry Blossom Hills which melodiously merges with the opening track, while introducing us to the sublime Mystery of Live & Death. Edgar Froese creates a theatrical universe where atony rubs shoulders with a minimalism bewitching dramatic structure. A title disconcerting by its unexpected ways of which a superb passage in the second part is not without reminding Stuntman with sequenced percussions increasing the pace. An excellent passage, perhaps Froese's best in ages, which slowly fades away in the melodious ashes of Dreaming in Kyoto Train. A track that shows that Edgar handles the melodic aspect wonderfully without falling into those traps of easiness. Aysumi's Butterflies will please the fans of the last Tangerine Dream era with a soft techno rhythm, but with superb mellotrons. A good mix between the harmonies of yesteryear on a more contemporary beat. The percussions harmonize with the synthesized fluids and its circular drones, giving a convincing mix without embarrassment or false notes. A soft techno with a soul which was rarely heard on the last TD albums. After the melodious Presentiment, 11-02 Am. plunges us into a musical universe where the choirs sway with a light oriental and ambient breeze on a jerky structure. It's like a sound spark that dies in the floating waves of the first bombs to fall.
Let's give Edgar Froese what is his due. SUMMER IN NAGASAKI is a splendid album which is impregnated of this melancholic softness that filled his little masterpieces like Epsilon in Malaysian Pale, for the ambiences, and Stuntman on the level of melody. A musical universe with rhythmic ambiguities, both progressive and melodious, on a background muffled of oriental perfumes. An album that can be listened to like a dream, with a beauty undefined by the breath of a man's imagination who has been absent for too long.
Sylvain Lupari (July 20th, 2007) *****
Available at Groove nl