“This is a compilation which respects the musical signature of Ultimae Records with 12 tracks which tie up psybient moods to morphic rhythms”
1 Drone Flower (Miktek) 8:12
2 Aeolis Mons (Mer-A) 8:25
3 Slow Motion (Lars Leonhard) 6:22
4 Turning Down (Muridae) 5:51
5 Plenitude (Fingers in the Noise) 5:54
6 Onyx (Aes Dana) 6:57
7 Morning Drops-Part I (I Awake) 3:04
8 Seance (36) 5:46
9 Morning Drops-Part II (I Awake) 3:07
10 Phaeton Remains (Scann-Tec) 8:43
11 Complex A (Circular) 8:24
12 Quasi Stellar (Mer-A) 6:43
(CD/DDL 76:03) (V.F.)
(IDM, EDM, down-tempos, psybient)
The first 3 minutes of Drone Flower are fed of droning waves and others sharper, more musical which cover the distant noises of a small industrial tribe. We float inside an egg cell where the outside life is perceptible and yet quite very far. And we get into life throughout the delicate pulsations which structure a soft tempo that a delicate line of piano harmonizes with the notes of a dreamy guitar, while quietly the pulse of percussions entails us in a morphic universe, where are floating the tears of synth which cry like violins of silk. Drone Flower is the first one of 12 music pieces where the atmospheres, wrapped with tones of crackling metal, float over rhythms and over melodies fragmented by directional indecisions. It's also the beginning of a compilation as strange as mesmerizing where the music is enveloping our senses as much as it mystifies our pulsatory rhythm. Oxyacantha, or Hawthorn, is a tree among which the leaves and berries are legendary known for their curative properties on the heart. It's also the title chosen by Mahiane, a famous French DJ who is strongly inspired by the nature and its esoteric side, for a compilation of titles wisely selected and delicately staged in a context of ambient music to the experimental fragrances. OXYCANTA III is a compilation which respects the musical signature of Ultimae Records with 12 tracks written by a crowd of emergent artists who experiment surrealist sonic atmospheres on slow lunar rhythms where the sound dresses of all of its forms and inconceivable dimensions, marrying universes as well microscopic as macroscopic. And throughout the 12 chapters of OXYCANTA III, we have this mesmerizing impression to be immersed by the circadian rhythms of a symphony of lunar down-tempos and by their organic pulsations.
The very beautiful Aeolis Mons pours between our ears like a luminous sonic river where a crowd of pulsations and jingles of eclectic tones make noise and sparkle on the delicious undulations of a bass line. The melodies are cruelly incomplete and draw plans of lyricism on a sound pattern as much allegorical as surrealist which pushes the hearing experiment up to the end of its cycle. This is a wonderful track which kisses my memories of Pink Floyd and the futuristic phases of Carbon Based Lifeforms' musical visions. Here are 2 tracks sensibly chosen which start this last compilation of the Lyon label on the right track. We stay in the darkness of the senses with Slow Motion whose drummed riffs are melting within heavy and slow synths layers which float on livelier, on more alert pulsations. The boom-booms resound dully and transcend the cracklings of the tribal percussions and the waves of organic pulsations which make noise while they evaporate into metallic hoops and elastic lines which float in an echo trapped in a glass dome. From slow, even ambient, the rhythm takes advantage of a brief ambiospherical moment to breathe some more inspired beatings, structuring so one of the most livened up phases of OXYCANTA III. Turning Down is a suave down-tempo where the percussions sparkle as wet rustles. The seraphic voices that wrap this morphic ode add a sensual dimension to this track which is as beautiful as Aeolis Mons. With Plenitude we swim in a pond of quirky tones and static cracklings which find nobility in a beautiful line of spiral sequence which sparkles as stars singing on the edge of our ear. And, like a very big part of the music here, the rhythm ends by livening up in the second half, growing again of its kicks of white noises which became threatening. With Onyx, we float in a cocoon fed by heterogeneous tones. The rhythm evolves constantly through a thick cloud of incomplete noises and tones, that one has stuck and hatched to give it a size as much futuristic as psychedelic.
And the more we sink into this album and the more we dive into a sound frenzy in perpetual movement. A charming universe where the lines of bass go alongside of percussions with organic hybrid approaches and the synths layers get lost in voices so much secret as suggestive. Melodies, as in Morning Drops Part I and Part II sparkle like stars which disappear in cosmic horizons, and the ambient passages, like in Session, are revitalized by underground pulsations, like percussions which put them to sleep. The whispers which sleep in the morphic harp melody of Phaeton Remains bring us into the secret territories of Ultimae Records' microcosmic symphonies from its parallel universes. The tempo livens up as much as it is illuminated. It follows an evolutionary tangent to attack the hearing of hammerings rolled in dusts of crystal melodies forgotten in the lines of atmospheres. There, where the stroller beat will throw its last bursts. The sound orgy continues with Complex A which offers an intense ambiospherical introduction where fractures of rhythms and evasive melodies are frozen in a storm of iconoclastic electronic tones. Some lines of rhythm hop around in damaged stroboscopic filets while that some uterine voices remain prisoners of their dreamlike cocoons. Little by little, the ends of rhythms hang on and shape a kind of down-tempo of which the fraudulent oscillations soak in a fountain of evanescent harmonies. A strange piece of music worthy of a constantly interrupted languishing rhythmic sexual intercourse. Quasi Stellar takes root in the finale with sheaves of jerky breezes which stamp on place in the wrapping arms of lunar synths. Explosions of percussions feed an elusive rhythm which rather hangs into the floating chords of a melody which tries to reconstitute a lyrical ode on a slow and dense ambiospherical movement which dies out in these erased rustles which punctuate the disturbing sound elements of this strange but attractive compilation which is OXYCANTA III.
Sylvain Lupari (October 5th, 2013) ***½**
Available at Ultimae Records Bandcamp