“Possibilities of Circumstance has an eclecticism that distorts not at all this fascinating harmonious pattern which flows from its very first seconds”
1 Consumed by Sunlight
(Steve Roach) 8:07 2 Lazy Arc (excerpt)
(Tim Story & Roedelius) 7:36 3 Callyx (Robert Rich) 5:58 4 There's Always Tomorrow (Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters) 5:37 5 Tower Indigo
(Larry Fast/Synergy) 7:45 6 Mapping the Autumn Sky
(Jeff Pearce) 6:39 7 Recuerdos De Luna (Nathan Youngblood & Soriah) 7:02 8 Misty Blue (Erik Wøllo) 7:22
(CD/DDL 56:10) (V.F.) (Ambient, tribal, sequenced EM)
I absolutely have to talk about this new compilation concocted by the American label Projekt Records. Not just because it's sold at a ridiculously low price ($8.00 on the platform download of Bandcamp). Not just because it comes from a label which favors dark and experimental EM. No! Because it groups the fruit of 8 artists, among which a famous return of Synergy, and 7 original compositions that you won't find anywhere else. POSSIBILITIES OF CIRCUMSTANCE is an eclectic compilation which plunges us into the core of this impressive label music freed of any commercial constraints. And it's not because it's not commercial that it's not beautiful, nor well. On the contrary.
Some delicate ringings sing among angelic voices, opening the ambient corridors of Consumed by Sunlight. Contrary to the Steve Roach's last works, except for the wonderful Today from the non less wonderful Live Transmission - From the drone Zones at Soma FM, Consumed by Sunlight offers a silkier version of Steve Roach's universe. The ambient rhythm is drinking of the delicate jolts of a bass line of which the furtive chords dance in accordance with these glass ringings and these breezes of synth which split up their melodies into some vocal breaths and translucent lines. This is a good piece of music which joins the quiet rhythms of Western Spaces and Landmass. We fall in another register with Lazy Arc from Tim Story & Roedelius. This extract, from an album due soon, is a lugubrious lullaby for tortured souls where an obsessing reverie, played on a somber melancholic piano, gets into the deepest of our melancholy. It's a mesmerizing quiet piece of music where are blowing winds, dark voices and are squeaking tones of a parallel world. These tones, which float like ghost threats, erode quietly the somber dreamy melody in order to absorb it completely around the middle part. Follows a slow fight between the harmonies and its abstract mirror, where the notes of piano go out defeated. They dance delicately with a ghost knight whose floating tears and the knocks of clogs of his horse are now the bed of this strange paranormal procession that is Lazy Arc. From a soft procession with ghostly aromas, we go in another one just as much mysterious but more livened up with Callyx that Robert Rich presented on his Medicine Box album. It's rather stunning how it sounds different here in a musical context which has nothing to envy to Medicine Box. The rhythm is delicately drummed by docile pulsations which marry the knells of the carillons, making caresses of clogs on a clammy earth. Quite slowly Callyx offers a beautiful crescendo from which the scale gets lost in this sound texture where are shinning the lamentations of guitars and their razor-sharp floating breezes. There is a strong influence of Berlin School hypnotic movements on There's Always Tomorrow, from Ulrich Schnauss and Mark Peters upcoming album; Tomorrow is Another Day. The track offers a very beautiful minimalist structure where the sequences dance and spin in a harmonious mess. They skip and pile up in the shadows of their harmonies and in the breezes of carillons to thousand prisms before being snatched up by a guitar with riffs more powerful than its grouchy solos. That promises! I already look forward to hearing this next album.
Oh was I anxious to hear this new Synergy track! First reaction? Confusion! The intro is black and offers a lugubrious theatrical approach deserving of an industrial apocalyptic vision. The first two minutes are distressing. We feel a kind of ambiospherical pressure getting on the edge. We feel that it's going to burst. And it bursts a little after the second minute with a great percussions pattern which rage in a kind of tribal rhythm. The synths are very theatrical with their sinister harmonies which cover a rhythm of post apocalyptic clanic war. In fact, Tower Indigo awakens in me some recollections of Metropolitan Suite. I liked it a lot. When a complete album will pop out? My sources told me that Larry Fast is really thinking of making one soon. After this mixture of aboriginal and industrial rhythm, Mapping the Autumn Sky, from Jeff Pearce, brings us towards the most ambient spheres of this compilation album. The track is dark and rests on a mixture of synth and guitars lines which float in a dark harmony pushed by the slow autumn winds. There is a lot of intensity in this arrhythmic movement where we hear singing the air and the winds which interlace in a surprising autumnal symphony. Amazingly, I listen to Mapping the Autumn Sky in front of my bay windows which kiss of their transparency the colors of autumn and its leaves which float above the surface of a river with red, yellow and orange colour spots. There are moments like that where the music is so much magical. Recuerdos De Luna is the darkest track here. Nathan Youngblood and Soriah weave a dark ambience where float abstruse winds. I hear swing to collide, like chains and carillons which are trembling and ringing in these winds which regurgitate some droning tremors of shamanic voices. Yeah, this is quite uneasy to tame. Erik Wollo's Misty Blue ends the album with a lively rhythm. A rhythm finely vigorous where the movement of sequences draw a fine carousel surrounded by mists of synth with sonic particles delicately lyrical. Another line of synth shapes the main harmonies which sing like these soft laments tinted with romantic that we find in Patrick O'Hearn's repertoire. It's not just beautiful, it's bewitching and it digs furrows straight to the soul. Damned that this Wollo is good!
POSSIBILITIES OF CIRCUMSTANCE is a superb compilation album where the eclecticism distorts not at all this fascinating harmonious pattern that flows from the first seconds of Consumed by Sunlight. The symbiosis which unites each piece of music is such as that we never have the impression to be in the chinks of a compilation. There is a crescendo which reaches its peak with Tower Indigo, afterward the black and intriguing ambiences bring us towards Erik Wollo's harmonious sunbeams. Out of this world! There is no weakness, there are no dead moments. Strongly recommendable! And with this so low price, there is no reason for not getting this excellent compilation from Projekt Records.
Sylvain Lupari (October 19th, 2013) *****
Available at Projekt Records Bandcamp