“Sparkling is an impressive mosaic of electronic rhythms which swirl in caresses and breaths of synth with thousand harmonious colors”
1 Sparkling 14:37
2 Metamorphose 10:08
3 Anamorphic 10:16
4 Return to 70's 12:37
5 Porzellan 8:02
6 Sonic Batic 9:33
7 Long Walk 9:55
8 Organ Lesson 4:57
(CD-R/DDL 80:05) (V.F.)
(New Berlin School)
One of the things that attract me in EM is this infinite possibility of creating any forms of sounds smiths of incomplete harmonies which glisten on rhythmic structures that are never too much far from those which made dance and dream lot of generations since the first 3 chords of rock. With SPARKLING, TM Solver quietly quits his universe which is imprint by the musicality of Software that had flavored the very nice Line on Glass. Thomas Meier becomes more audacious and ventures into the paths of a progressive New Berlin School where the rhythms and their spherical forms kiss tangents as much morphic as suave with a blend of mid and down-tempos which are illuminated by an impressive sound dryad.
Heavy winds of a somber synth, endowed with a beautiful harmonious line which floats with musicality, open the eponym track of Thomas Meier's 5th album. Jingles, sometimes in organic tones, pierce this cloud of musical radio activities. Prima facie discreet, they ring and interlock into a fine of line rhythm to get tied to a line of bass. The rhythm becomes pale. It pulses gropingly into the short breaths of a synth which splits its melodious reach by freeing some furtive floating harmonies and by clearing an intense morphic fog. This rhythm stemming from the void continues to drink eclectic tones and to swirl of its jingles to protean tints which sparkle and embroider some scattered outlines of unfinished melodies that lines of mist and choruses are wrapping of a dense coat of fog from which the minimalist approach denies at no moment its poetic reflection. And quietly Sparkling spins of its quirky tones, waltzing languishingly through the clouds of mists filled by silvery voices and leaning on the more steady pulsations of a bass line, drawing the doubtful route of a Horseman of the Apocalypse. This is a beautiful track which allies the originality and reminiscences of an art which fed itself by its mechanisms of complexity. Metamorphose sticks to the finale of the title-track with chords which skip with pins and needles in the legs. The sequence is nervous and shakes its jumping keys which roam with strength before that a soft bass line is weakening the rush. The track kisses then a suave lunar down-tempo where sequences bicker in the background of a structure which pulses with the slowness of an abstract object of desire. And fall the astral veils which bury Metamorphose of a celestial aura and where the synths draw mists to the colors of fire and breaths of a dreamy saxophonist and of his melancholic solos, bringing the listener in cozy comfort of the forbidden dreams. The train Anamorphic lands into our ears with its jingles which run against the wind. Tones of organic gurglings are pulsing in an anarchy plan, multi-coloring the road of Anamorphic which increases substantially its pace by scrolling in a musical landscape decorated by heterogeneous tones as much psychedelic as eclectic and lyrical.
Return to 70's gets into our ears with these organic pulsations which caw but especially sing on a structure which changes its moves between its two times. The movement is slow. It makes bend its oscillations in the rotatory circles of a slow allegorical spiral where are chuckling the bats and of which the derisive laughters become confused in the jingles of the metallic wings. The movement reminds me of a musical crossing between Visage, and their eponym album, and Software and of their finely hatched spirals. Porzellan continues to investigate these rhythmic figures with delicately jerky twisting which built the spherical rhythms of SPARKLING. The musical fauna is always so rich with a thick cloud of quirky tones which ally the universe of the buzzing lavas to the one that more musical of the breaths of synths to fragrances of vuvuzelas with a cold. The synth is superbly soft. It throws solos which coo on this unique slightly spasmodic ballet to Teutonic structures, attracting Porzellan in a portion as melodic than lunar. After an intro eaten away by the indecision of its hatched riffs and its eroded circles, Sonic Batic dives into a great groove which swirls such as a circular cha-cha-cha to which it is lacking one step. The beat is a mid-tempo sat on good percussions and a bass line with the curvatures of big grass-snake crawling on fine sand dunes as well as on fine riffs sounding as organic gurglings. The musical set is always luxurious with allegorical spins which illuminate the mood of their fine evasive solos and synth layers which free twinkling stars. The puny start of Long Walk feeds itself on its good bass line, introducing another beautiful down-tempo which has nothing to envy to the beautiful Metamorphose. The tones of organs which cover the very psychedelic atmospheres of Organ Lesson charm also the fragile harmonies of Long Walk while that on the final they breathe a real ode into the experimental flavors of the 60's with a so threatening approach than bewitching. Iron Butterfly on Mind Over Matter...Delicious!
Sounds! A thick cloud of sounds in forms as quirky as charming, SPARKLING is an impressive mosaic of electronic rhythms which swirl in the caresses and breaths of synth to thousand harmonious colors. Sometimes morphic and sometimes delicately lively, these hypnotic rhythms weave the pieces of magical electronic carousel where is raining some twinkling showers of meteorites trapped in the broth of a cosmos to floodlit harmonies.
Sylvain Lupari (March 12th, 2013) *****
Available at SynGate Bandcamp