“I Remain is an awesome piece of deep, relaxing and dreaming ambient music. Period!”
1 I Remain Part One 3:48 2 I Remain Part Two 6:57 3 I Remain Part Three 4:59 4 I Remain Part Four 9:42 5 I Remain Part Five 1:40 6 I Remain Part Six 3:07 7 I Remain Part Seven 2:20 8 I Remain Part Eight 1:15 9 I Remain Part Nine 8:09 A-Frame Media | A-Frame 12 (DDL/CD-r 41:57) (V.F.)
(Ambient EM)
We know when an album will leave an indelible mark on the soul. From the first listenings, one feels bewitched and subtly captivated. Sounds! Sounds that come out in loops. Loops that look, intersect, overlap and intertwine in a latent and delicate musical maelstrom where thin strata of a melancholic synth and keyboard chords a little lost wander with choruses, as cosmic as oneiric, in a beautiful astral crescendo. If the first listen seduces, the second subjugates and the third confirms that we will listen again and again this strange symphony of stars segmented into 9 parts, but merged into a long cosmic ode, which drowns our cortex of a soft balm serene and soothing. A soft chimeric shower spreads its droplets on the wings of a synth with slow deviant and melancholic strata. A nice synth line that wavers among distant explosions of refineries, of lost riffs and of choruses that wander in harmony with a flicker of arpeggios shimmering under the reflections of an astral light, such as dreamlike loops that scroll through the stars. In spite of the sweetness of a movement waltzing with its scattered flutes, one already feels the dramatic crescendo floating around I REMAIN. Part II continues this sweet dance of clinking under beautiful caresses from a synth with oblong layers whose sounds run through time. The movement is sober, but deliciously hypnotic with its synth layers that mingle like specters of a lost love in a superb dance of the star that chimes around lonely choruses and strange puffs emanating from a metal flute. This strange ball of light continues with the poetic Part III where the cosmic vacuum, or terrestrial, is filled with delicate lines of synth and of its cosmic dust. Fine loops form, embracing this phase of tranquility where soft oscillations flourish among this celestial choruses and a thin bass line that molds the first rhythmic presence of I REMAIN. A bass line which sculpts a spiral climb to the door of the morphic goddesses. And then, Part IV the first sublimity! We perceive a latent rhythmic life which is imprisoned under the weight of heavy loops and layers in their paradoxical crossings, since the beginning of I REMAIN. A dark and dramatic life that ends up overflowing here. But also, a complex life of rhythm, animated with layers of implosions that go growing.
A unique crescendo composed of buzzing loops and of rolling percussions that lead us to a good astral bolero. With a delicate cymbal that supports the movement of the loops clashing a synth with always opaque layers, the rhythm takes on a timid assurance with the beating of a heavy bass pulsation in a slightly syncopated approach. A fabulous dance of crystalline arpeggios ensues . A lascivious astral dance that embraces the slow morphic layers of a synth that is always so sad, dropping its little shimmering serpentines that crisscross the tracks of this flagship album in the discography of The Glimmer Room, like some analog sensors. The tempo found, I REMAIN continues its procession which is covered with a dramatic vision called to amplify with this strange military march. Second sublimity; Part VI! With its percussion strikes that embrace the dramatic march driven by muted oscillations, this phase creates an amazing paradox between rhythm and non-rhythm. This off-beat dance achieves in a splendid emotional finale whose hot ashes illuminate a darkness pierced by the song of astral sirens, while a piano makes gently cry its arpeggios under the fine rain of dry clouds. A sublime musical world that defends its beauty, its tenderness and its delicacy with the touching Part VIII and its melancholic piano which pierces the bitterness of the cosmic choruses to lead to the last sublimity of I REMAIN; I Remain Part IX closing with a tremendous flight of the mellotron's chimerical violins where the strings waltz with our pain and where the angels are wrapped around this astral virginity.
How beautiful it is. Oh how this story, so dull at first, became the accomplice of my loneliness. I REMAIN is an excellent album. If time stands, it will become a masterpiece of ambient and atmospheric music very close to Michael Strearns and his Chronos. Standing, as if sitting, I remain stunned before so much beauty from synth music. Hat to you Andy Condon for this wonderful album. You are the last artist to have touched me and stirred with so much impact! Ten years after this chronicle, I REMAIN is always this accomplice!
Sylvain Lupari (11/10/2010) *****
Available at The Glimmer Room Bandcamp