“Welcome to the world where EM is built straight from imagination and from sweat at finding things. Welcome to Synth Modular EM universe”
1 Natural Minor Sines 8:03 2 Tone 6 9:02 3 Virus 7:41 4 If Wishes Came True 6:29 5 Ghatam 6:13 6 Un coq à Esculape 6:07 7 Frieze Relief 5:28 8 Spherfear 9:38 9 Harmonograph 7:59 DiN-TS1
(CD/DDL 66:39) (V.F.) (Modular Synth Music)
Art! When ambient music and music of ambiences arise the creativity and the abstracted concept to become inseparable elements which deepen and decorate another shape of creativity, I call this; art. Real pioneer and precursor of contemporary EM, Ian Boddy plunges into the adventure of Library Music create by modular synthesizer with a first album of a 3rd division of his label; Tone Science. In fact, the boss of DiN pursues the path that he drew with his album livened up by impulses and not by sequences, Tone Science released in 2016. “No.1 Structure and Forces” includes 9 compositions from artists who work in the anonymity of the art, finally for the greater part, but who are nevertheless so essential for the needs for the 7th art and for its by-products. Besides a composition stemming from the sessions of Tone Science, (Tone 6) Ian Boddy gathers and arranges the compositions of Paul Lawler, Nigel Mullaney, Lyonel Bauchet, Chris Carter, whom we know to have collaborated to Ian Boddy's albums or DiN albums, and less known names of DivKid, Richard Scott and Matthew Shaw. These creators of soundscapes all very active in the field of Library Music, this dark universe but oh how much important, which gives the relief necessary to movies, documentaries, reports and to television as well as radio programs. These gigantic banks contain all the musical genres composed and interpreted by using all sort of musical instruments. On Tone Science division, the music proposed is composed and played by using modular synthesizers only. And after having heard the 9 tracks in this No.1 STRUCTURE AND FORCES we understand why…
It's a composition from DivKid which makes us discover the sound depths of the new sub-label of DiN. Natural Minor Sines is a corridor of atmospheres elements with oscillating lines which get intertwine with colors, as cold as warm, from both ends of cosmos to which Sir. Divward Kiddery adds elements of psybient. It's purely ambient, even deeply cosmic, and nearly meditative, with a good sound ornamentation. The precision in the tones here has given me the shivers. Tone 6 continues there where Ian Boddy's Tone Science album has ended while Paul Lawler's Virus represents well enough the works of ambient vibes of the latter, but in an approach more organic than cosmic. After an introduction of turbulence, the ambiences lead us towards a sunny afternoon where chirp a flock of sparrows. A short rhythmic pattern, unusual and unique to the signature of the master of Arcane's fates gives a sordid life to a music which depicts very well the spirit behind the title. Virus half-opened the door of the unthinkable rhythms of the modular synthesizers. A line of loops multiplies its effects of guitars while the opening of If Wishes Came True from Scanner feed a sound neurosis with noises of greyness, ectoplasmic voices, hasty whispers and vapors of a vampiric e-guitar which cover the basis of circadian pulsations. There is a lot of mystery, as of passion, behind these multilayers of effects of which the narrow meshing gives a sound illusion united by a quartet of strings musicians among whom a certain Robert Fripp and his legendary laments which establish constantly a fascinating and charmingly sinister mood.
We always search for a reference when we discover something and the one who comes to me by discovering these multiple bounces of neurotic jingles in Ghatam is Eddie Jobson's album, Theme of Secret. An inescapable in the genre! Here, the movement is less harmonious with an ostinato pattern of hypnotic jumps where Richard Scott modulates variations and nuances which go hand in hand with the vapors of synth in the background. A similar movement but coated with a little more musicality and structured on a lively rhythm comes afterward from the one who gave us the very beautiful The Secret Society, Lyonel Bauchet. Livened up by a steady rhythm, Un coq à Esculape was conceived on the Buchla modular synth and the liveliness of the movement, as much fascinating than unusual, is encircled by synth layers swollen of white noises and by very good psybient effects. That gave me the taste to dip again my ears into The Secret Society which was released on DiN DDL in 2011. Chris Carter pursues the road of the rhythmic oscillations with Frieze Relief. The bass line and the bass pulsations create a rhythmic approach rather dance and even furious by moments whereas good effects lay down a creative shroud a bit psychedelic. Nigel Mullaney throws to us afterward a very beautiful and very poignant title of ambiences with Spherfear. The music is very captivating with a sensation to be stuck inside a bubble and that we go adrift between this invisible point where the ocean joins the cosmos. This is a great piece of ambient music, like Natural Minor Sines by the way, which reminds me of Chronos, for the intensity, from Michael Stearns. No.1 STRUCTURE AND FORCES ends a little like the adventure has begun. In this sense that Harmonograph is initially structured around a corridor of synth vapors and layers to which get gradually grafted a pleiad of white noises on a meshing of pulsations, bringing this Matthew Shaw's title towards these structures of rhythm without definition but which forge resolutely their place in the glaucous and mysterious universe of the psybient.
Odd object of discovery, No.1 STRUCTURE AND FORCES demystifies the Library Music with a wide range of genres of which the making is a matter of ingenuity from the collaborators of this first album from DiN's new division; Tone Science. The purity of sounds is exceptional with an approach, a vision which places us where the craftsmen of this album wanted us to be. A very good compilation of ambient music and of cinematic ambiences.
Sylvain Lupari (April 21st, 2018) ****½* SynthSequences.com
Available at DiN Bandcamp