“A music going between the very daring psychedelic and beautiful electronic moments”
1 Cucumber Salad 22:27
2 For the Love of all Things Electronic 10:27
3 Rising Ashes 28:10
4 Electric Fairytales 16:08
Bajkal Records 222018
(CD 77:16) (V.F.)
(Progressive Berlin School & Experimental EM)
With ELECTRIC FAIRYTALES, WintherStormer redefines the very hermetic and impenetrable style of Woodwork. Recorded live in a studio, this second opus of the Norwegian quartet still offers this tortuous and progressive approach that has so charmed the ears fond of sonic curiosities, but with a vision closer to the roots of Berlin School. The result is an album that is still difficult to tame, but less so than its predecessor. A musical excursion that combines the intricacies of Krautrock with the atmospheric escapades of EM, but with a zest of musicality tinted with a sensitivity that was sorely lacking on Woodwork.
The noises and the heterogeneous sounds rolling in waves in a sparkling cosmos of sound limpidity open Cucumber Salad. An intro high in acoustic colors that opens on a heavy sequence with eroded hesitations. A sequence that hiccups into a rhythm with chaotic undulations wrapped in a nice fluted mellotron pad and vaporous keyboards chords that recall the vintage years of Tangerine Dream. Once the first 3 minutes are over, Cucumber Salad takes a more accessible musical direction, while maintaining its aura of complexity with a nervously bouncy beat. It flirts with beautiful Mellotron layers that float around the laments of an electric six-string and twisted synth solos. Odes at the same time spectral and seductive which sail in troubled waters as purified by moments and which sometimes illuminate this cadence with abrupt and random beats. For the Love of all Things Electronic presents another visage of WintherStormer. A WintherStormer clearly more musical and poetic which spreads out nice ethereal layers whose dreamy sonorities waltz around soft pulsations which sculpt a languorous pace. An impromptu sensuality which takes refuge in the soft strata of a Göttsching-like guitar, whose solos circulate among a rhythm more accentuated by the strikes of a heavy drum. The whole is surrounded by reverberating circles, bringing a surrealist touch to a good music for physical love.
The intro of Rising Ashes takes us back to the very psychedelic and colorful musical universe of the Norwegian band. An oblong intro where the cosmic sonorities flow with a sharpness worthy of an anarchic world. Towards the 7th minute, a soft pace pierces this oxidized din to create a nervous rhythm which rests on good percussions, a strong structure of bass and a fusion guitar/synth which exalts with a ferocity equal to the more and more punctuated hammerings of a drum solidary of this rhythmic become more and more furious. This psychedelic heaviness crosses less inflamed corridors where effluences of ethereal Berlin School temper the aggressiveness of a structure which spreads its strikes in the heterogeneous meanders of its intro. A heavy track, in the line of Woodwork, which extends its sonic imprints on the title track which is a fusion of noises and heterogeneous sounds that shape brief musical intervals in an anarchic sound universe.
ELECTRIC FAIRYTALES points out WintherStormer's commitment to music without boundaries and without labels. A music which oscillates between the very daring psychedelic and beautiful electronic moments which are situated in the era of Klaus Schulze and Ashra Tempel. An album where the creative paradoxes swim at the opposite of the harmonious poles, but which gets tamed a little better than Woodwork. For curious and very curious ears.
Sylvain Lupari (February 3rd, 2010) *****
Available at WintherStormer