“E-LIVE 2009 presents 4 long music pieces of distinct musical orientations”
1 Drive-FDM (Stephan Whitlan) 14:13
2 P-W-M-C (Faralley) 7:12
3 Analogue Satourn (Brendan Pollard & Hashtronaut) 27:43
4 Sucrology /Excerpt (Der Spyra) 12:11
(CD 61:19) (V.F.)
(Ambient, Progressive EM)
On the next October 9th will be hold the great autumnal mass of EM, E-Live. An annual celebration initiated in 1988 with KLEM-Day and as at each year the Groove nl label released a CD that includes new unreleased music from the artists who participate at the event. In 2009, the festival gathered Stephan Whitlan, Faralley, Brendan Pollard & Mike Daniel (Hashtronaut), as well as Spyra. E-LIVE 2009 presents 4 long music pieces of distinct musical orientations, but very close to the hypnotic movements and the so personal cosmic structures of the Berlin School style. But a Berlin School refreshes by a very current vision of EM personalized by a beautiful series of innovative and nostalgic artists.
Although not very known Stephan Whitlan is a veteran of the electronic music scene since 1998 with the release of K2 Project. In 2009 he attempts a comeback with the Triangulation album while taking part in both E-Day and E-Live festivals. Drive-FDM starts with a sequential hiccupping and hesitant movement which takes strength through a soft fog of a mellotron which frees beautiful enveloping layers among a soft drizzle of cosmic sound effects. Minimalism structure with a divide sequential approach, subdividing its keys which hop nervously on a hypnotic linear pace. Drive-FDM progresses in a wrapping of a fluty mellotron with misty pads which coat a pace which hobble along skillfully on a nervous structure hazed by good twisted solos of a hybrid synth where choirs and mellotron layers are dividing the harmonious envelope. Very good! Faralley is completely unknown to me and the least that one can say is that it seems very creative if one trusts his P-W-M-C title. A strange track that opens with a superb hybrid synth from which mellotron breaths and heavy reverberations escape from a magnetic storm. Cymbals animate a syncopated tempo, wrapped of wavering layers, filtering little by little an cadence animated of percussions to unforeseeable rolling. A strange amalgam of colliding sonorities which strike a variegated structure where solos of a heavy synth go along with an ethereal fragility, shaping a piece of music with harmonious antipodes.
Brendan Pollard and Hashtronaut present a very long title filled of Berlin School fragrances which is impregnated of a strong psychedelic approach. An intro tinted of cosmic sound elements which evaporate with the arrival of a heavy oscillating sequence, embraced of soft Mellotron flute propels Analogue Satourn towards psychedelic summits with twisted synth solos and cosmic guitars which leaf trough a heavy sequence. A fatty and roaring sequence which hems besides a beautiful line of bass whose pulsations weaken to embrace an atmospheric and cosmic passage filled by heteroclite sonorities which gently re initiate the heavy structure of Analogue Satourn. A sequential structure which undulates with force, wrapped of solos from a guitar and a synth with imaginations as fertile as corrosive. Good Berlin School there, more contemporary than vintage! Always so disconcerting and intriguing, Spyra throws a track animated by powerful electronic percussions. Sailing on rhythms a bit technoïd, at the same time purely electronic and sometimes cosmic, the German synthesist gives us a true lesson of electronic percussions sticks which strike, roll down and ram hybrid cadences surrounded by sulfurous synths and mellotron choirs. A superb stylistic composition that shows at which point Spyra is unique in the sphere of contemporary EM.
Sylvain Lupari (October 5th, 2010) ***½**
Available at Groove nl