“This is an album that commands a giant open-mind then you’ll find great analog electronic movements”
1 Pure Analogue Forever 15:51
2 Musical Equitation Extracted from Firelogs 17:09
3 Engraved 8:02
4 Monochrome 35:13
Bajkal Records 222016
(CD 76:20) (V.F.)
(Progressive Berlin School)
Phew! This is an album that commands a giant open-mind and an understanding of musical evolution quite developed thank you. Being an artist not easy to tame himself, WintherStormer's WOODWORK is that kind of album that hits the senses listening after listening. If Pure Analogue Forever bewitches us quite easily, the other 3 tracks are of a musical complexity that requires some listenings, at least for me, but which end up finding the road of our evolution. And it happened to me! Eh yes…
Like thousands of sonic prisms from a fragmented musical hologram, the first steps of Pure Analogue Forever plunge us into an eclectic world where sonorous paranoia reigns in a primal din. The loops of the sequencer undulate in a piercing statism to form a bass line that winds a cosmic path where the heteroclite and schizophrenia of waves and sounds are kings. Softly, this hullabaloo tamed to be switches into a beautiful line of a sober and melodious synth that melts in the ear like a honeyed mellotron. Unctuous and enveloping, the synths travel in melody mode on nice orchestral pads that mix its musical fluids with the waves of a guitar. This is electronic progressive where tamtams and languorous riffs open the doors to a cosmic serenade with Hindu fragrances. Musical Equitation Extracted from Firelogs is a title with extremely enveloping ambiances and just as dark. The fluttered breaths float in a cavernous atmosphere with sonorous stalactites that get detaching to form ghostly shadows which wave like flames in a current with feeble harmonious litanies, like cryptic choruses celebrating in the abyss of darkness. From calm we go to acrimony with Engraved which breaks through such as a musical psychosis where two contradictory entities exchange bits of harmonies in a cacophonous deluge. Weak spiral arpeggios parade in sequences in short harmonious passages to give the melody to big untimely sound outbursts with heavy riffs, unbridled percussions and synths with powerful solos. A style exercise that requires vigilance not to get high on the eardrums just before hearing the amazing Monochrome. This long minimalist title begins with a very beautiful line of flute and a very Tangram sequence from Tangerine Dream. A good bass line emerges to meander a long sinuous movement to which are added jerky layers of synths, as melodious as musical, in a kind of spectral whirlwind. It's a bewitching architectural procession with countless sonic tremors which evolves in an electronic and progressive musical world.
Phew! No, not easy to approach this WOODWORK from WintherStormer. But it's this kind of album that makes you hover and that can stir our nostalgic ashes. An intense and very avant-garde music that wins to be tamed.
Sylvain Lupari (August 3rd, 2007) *****
Available at WintherStormer