The emperor's clothes... and Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxymore

 

The twenty-second studio album from one of the grand masters of visionary electronic music has been released as an homage to Pierre Henry, and Jarre's official website presents it as "conceptually his most ambitious and groundbreaking to date".

If one approaches it with quite a few decades of Jarre fandom and almost equal number of decades of audio engineering experience under one's belt, the impulse to state a few non-subjective facts about this album becomes uncontrollable. 

Thus, it is easiest to describe what this album is not...  and these facts definitely contradict the  bandwagoning and artificial, thoughtless applauding in quite a few music publications.

One has to start with the claim that this is Jarre's most ambitious and groundbreaking studio album... 

The listener may have been fascinated by the paradox of the recent Equinoxe Infinity album, which was released with great hype about its futuristic visions - but the album contained highly self-conscious nostalgia and re-iterations of the past (down to the use of specific 1970s sounds from the original Equinoxe), combined with quasi-desperate EDM trendiness and shockingly antiquated, even banale, sound sample manipulations from the mid-1980s. 

If that listener wishes to revisit those mixed feelings, then Oxymore is another perfect album for that. 

Pierre Henry was undoubtedly a trailblazer with huge influence on Jarre, too. In 2022, chopping of samples of his speech (and other sounds) is not only far from groundbreaking or ambitious creativity, it is not even something of the present. Nor is time stretching, or rapid modulation of audio synthesis parameters. What we hear throughout the album, in terms of the sounds used as rhythmic or pitch-pattern elements, could be and has been done, admittedly more tediously, in the mid-to-late 1980s already. 

Ambitious and groundbreaking creativity is not tens of minutes of rapid changes to sound localisation in stereo or surround sound space, applied to almost all sequenced patterns and lead motifs. Well, lead sounds, as one has to challenge misty-eyed reviewers (who are using words they prove not to understand at all) to name a single musical motif they remember after the album listening ends. There are none, albeit this one is, naturally, a subjective take. 

So let's paddle back to the waters of objective analysis via a trajectory that is much less jagged and histrionic than the sound processing on the entire album...

The sorely missed Klaus Schulze or any grand master of the Berlin School of EM have demonstrated decades ago how on-the-surface monotonous sounding sequenced sounds can actually contain a Universe of myriad changes, subtleties, fluid and spirited movements that can enchant the brain. 

What we have on Oxymore is a robotic, exactly repeating sequencing in many places, where musically or even sonically there is zero change - whilst other layers of sounds are trying to mask this with the aforementioned aggressive, constantly jumping-around, aimless modulations of filters, envelopes, distortion effects, and spatial localisation. 

Do we recall Moon Machine, from the album Images or the single? If one takes away all the structural development, and puts its sequencing, panning, and rhythm programming through a MIDI randomizer plugin that changes control parameters rapidly... we would get something very close to the majority of the "tracks" on Oxymore. But... Moon Machine was created then released in the mid-1980s...

Some called the new album Zoolook 2. Once again, one (in a by-now thoroughly irritated manner) has to conclude that some, simply and factually, have no idea why Zoolook was astonishingly imaginative, innovative, and why it holds up even in 2022 as a seriously "wow" electronic album. Oxymore would only be a Zoolok 2 if it had used current synthesis and re-synthesis methods in a way that it pushes them far beyond what everybody else is doing at the moment with them. 

Using 1980s garbling of audio samples, 1990s grain synthesis, time stretching based on the same granular technology that has been around us for decades etc. is not even reaching the level of what other (experimental or mainstream) electronic artists have been doing for years, if not decades. 

The one area of innovation where Oxymore can fairly claim novelty status is, ironically, not in electronic music - it is in visual and immersive virtual reality realm.

In mixing and mastering, sure, there are state-of-the art audio techniques employed - the Dolby Atmos mix makes it something worth listening to, from a sonic experience and technical viewpoint... at most. 

The supreme irony of this album is that if this was to be any kind of true homage to Pierre Henry, it could have been a cerebral sonic collage or any form of 'experimental' electronic music - instead of something abundant in desperately trendy drum machine beats and many EDM clichés.

The subject area where it is quite near-impossible to write anything objective is certainly the musical one. Does Oxymore contain anything more than jarring, random, overdone, and sometimes, for prolonged sections, robotically monotonous sonic puree from a high-powered blender?

Well, let's attempt a not purely subjective answer based on a look at Jarre's first few albums released almost four and a half decades ago... and Oxymore.

The astounding imagination that resulted in the groundbreaking Oxygene and Equinoxe albums was both technical and musical. Fascinating creativity fought with rudimentary technology, pushing it to its limits, in order to create something fluid, otherworldly, yet so human that it even contained memorable hummable tunes... and evergreen EM "hits". 

It is deeply ironic, that all the hype around Oxymore simply cannot hide the glaringly obvious fact that, apart from the mentioned mixing/mastering technology and the multimedia materials accompanying the album's sonic content, Oxymore does not bring anything new that makes erudite or non-erudite listeners sit up on hearing unprecedented flights of imagination.

One could put up even with pure technological innovation in the "tracks" when it comes to sound synthesis, but all one hears is regurgitated decades-old technology hammered-on with the higher speed modulation capabilities of modern software. 

Jarre stated that he feels "sorry for those afraid of the future". Quite rightly so. However, his depiction of future is robotically re-using decades-old EM tropes pushed to the extreme, while the visuals are quasi-monochromatic, as sterile and industrial-looking as the CGI in Tron was in the early 1980s... or a modern rendering of the gloomy industrial cityscapes of Fritz Lang's Metropolis from the mid-1920s... If this is the future, then, unfortunately, we should be worried about a return to the visions of 1950s dystopian science fiction...

Even if one let the hype-vs-reality contradictions of the "futuristic" Equinoxe Infinity pass despite its dense 1970s (and clichéd 1990s) references, it is impossible to do so in the case of Oxymore. The emperor, this time, really isn't wearing any clothes. 

Returning from turbulent seas: Paul Haslinger's Exit Ghost II

 

Being an influential member, even if temporarily, of a legendary band with individual voice in the global music landscape can affect later on the way in which the band's fans react to one's solo albums... especially when those significantly depart from what is "expected" by those fans. 

If a band is as long-lived and influential as Tangerine Dream is, then its ex-members' solo efforts inevitably get compared by fans, and not just, to the style and sonic universe of the TD albums from various eras. 

When Christopher Franke released his highly visual, descriptive (thus, in classical terms, program) music on his first solo album (Pacific Coast Highway), there were not only ovations... but also dismay from some. It was not "like TD". It was "disappointingly" not TD. 

Paul Haslinger, another notable name in Tangerine Dream history, has quite a few soundtrack, solo, and collaborative albums under his belt. Even so, his fragile, almost translucent, ethereal album Exit Ghost stunned some - not in a positive way. It was a radical departure not only from TD, but also from his own previous creations... 

Probably similar things happen with the new album, Exit Ghost II... One can always judge a composer by the musical range he/she is capable of (even if one is not subjectively enjoying some segments of that range), or one can just judge it by comparisons with what is "expected". In latter case, it seems useful to provide a very early hint to those listeners - and let them know that this album, too is a radical departure from "expected" TD-like music. 

Its predecessor was born under exceptional circumstances - and this sequel comes just when the world is trying to return from the lengthy shock that was Covid's arrival. 

To quote, the album was "born out of an incessant need to escape the trauma that has gripped the world for the last year coupled with an urge to complement the introspective and moody atmospherics of the last record, ‘Exit Ghost II’ is the counter-element that closes the circle".

The very first things to remark is that it does have a wider sonic range, with even orchestral textures - it does feel more luminous and emotionally charged. However, it still has that sublime quality that we heard on the first album, and entire passages of it can only be compared to the gentle, remarkably introspective soundscapes we hear on Ryuichi Sakamoto's Async or many Olafur Arnalds albums. 

Cambium, the opening track does place us in the minimalist, charming, piano- and electronic percussion-based Universe we may hear on Arnalds albums. Other piano-centric tracks like Septuagint are playful, adventurous, this particular one playing with 7/8 time signature that is refreshing to hear after so many metric tonnes of firmly 4/4-based electronic music...

Emerald is an example of the ethereal beauty Haslinger can conjure from some floating electronic textures and a few perfect gems of piano motifs. Translucent, exactly as the title suggests, is another example, where choral sounds are at the same time Earth-bound and otherworldly. 

Waltz II and Inversion III return us to a piano-based sonic world, with the former bringing lovely melancholy, while the latter moving out into more experimental-sounding chromaticism.

Mishkin has again an ethereal feel that can be perhaps described as something that Thomas Newman fans would love: fragile, translucent textures punctuated by gentle piano chords. So is Schubert IX Coda, which combines infinitely delicate electronics with subtle piano notes and chords.

The closing track, A Young Fellow is not only standing out with its rich orchestral feel, but it is also charming with its use of voice samples - and overall an uplifting, optimistic ending to the album.

As the notes of the album state, Paul Haslinger’s ‘Exit Ghost II’ is the composer’s quest for arrival after a year lost at sea. 

After a bizarre and in many ways dark, anxiety-permeated year, this follow-up album, ending with aforementioned uplifting track filled with optimism, is really a successful antidote to 2020's dark clouds...

Still holding the sky - Intruder by Gary Numan

 

Gary Numan's compositions have often been running ahead of the times, either in terms of the music, instrumentation, lyrics... or all of the above. After the dystopian visions of Savage, the new concept album Intruder is more about the here-and-now than some imagined future - however, the sound design, music, and production aspects of the album have that otherworldly and unmistakable Numan feel that one expects. 

It is again an introspectice record, in many ways connects us with the world of one of his recent and highly personal albums, Splinter.

Each track seems to be perfectly integrated into the whole that Intruder constitutes as an album, nothing feels out of place - and remarkably, after more than four decades of creative output, at least this reviewer could not find a single track that noticeably differs from the overall feel of the album, in terms of its quality and level of engagement triggered in the listener. 

We have many tracks of an eminently anthemic quality, some with genuine head bobbing potential... Now and Forever is a perfect example, so is I Am Screaming - we may find ourselves singing along at the top of our otherwise modest voices. Numan's melodic inventiveness is still at a sustained peak - many of the melodic phrases of the album have earworm potential, and many melodies, especially in the expansive choruses, have a not often heard beauty. 

Tracks like The Gift or The End of Dragons have those Eastern touches we last heard on Savage, whilst Black Sun takes us into the world of intimate, gentle Numan compositions. If Intruder, the title track, is suitably dark and reaching for harsher metallic rock sonorities, compositions like the aforementioned I Am Screaming show that quintessential Numan characteristic: a track can go from subtle, almost whispering vocal phrases to a soaring, uplifting, and ceiling-lifting chorus in under one second. The emotional effect, the lift, such tracks give the listener are hard to put in words, but Numan fans will be very familiar with the effect. 

This album, too is a collaboration with Ade Fenton, thus in terms of production values, technical wizardry and the overall Numan-esque soundscapes, Intruder excels. It unleashes on us an instantly recognisable soundworld, across the entire range - and the album certainly has a vast range, going from delicate ballad-like passages to Earth-shattering passages. The Chosen or Is This World Not Enough are good examples of how the vast forces at work are managed, tamed, or unleashed with full force.

The electronic percussion, too is highly characteristic, decayed metal parts of dismantled androids and remains of alien spaceships are scraped, banged together, hit with other things... 

As some may hear on some M83 albums, Intruder achieves the rare mixing and mastering fete of having even the soft, subtle, even quasi-whispered vocals come across with perfecly intelligible words whilst immersed in thundering electronic textures.

The term "synth-pop" or "electro-pop", which was used for decades to label Gary Numan's music, is still in use today... But if his recent albums were not sufficient proof of the fact that the use of this label nowadays is just a lazy shorthand, then Intruder once again demonstrates this.

To paraphrase one of the lines from The End of Dragons, Gary Numan still holds the sky as a bona fide electronic music hero, with yet another fully-fledged concept album that dares to move lightyears outside current stereotypical electronica.

Multiple sonic pleasures: Multiplicitas by Magic Bullet

 

Multiplicitas, the extra special double debut album by Magic Bullet, another artistic incarnation of the underground and independent music guru that is Mick Magic. This blog, too had the pleasure over the recent years of savouring and writing about Mick's long-standing travails in the underground music scene - and this is yet another epic creative venture unleashed on the rather surreal world of 2020...

The double album consists of Solidarietas and Curiositas - and they take us from something firmly rooted in experimental sound galaxies to head-bobbing high-octane progressive rock.

Solidarietas was reportedly born out of a creative wave that initially provided a shorter work for a musique concrète compilation. This hour-long experimental composition is demanding attention - which is quite different from what often-seen misconceptions about the genre state. 

It may well start with elements of ambient noise, radio broadcast fragments in Russian language, natural sounds - but, like all imaginative musique concrete, it is not background ambiental music. It is clearly a product of the digital era, this is not Varèse experimenting with rudimentary tapes... Thus, there is much more precise control in sculpting sounds - and considerably more processing possibilities that propel the listener into another world. 

In a many ways, the mindset that is required for an introspective work like Klaus Schulze's Sebastian im Traum is needed here. The overall effect, not the individual elements matter here as we are taken on a sonic journey. The processed 'raw materials' certainly seem to fuse time and space, evoking imagery from the Soviet era, moving through the cogs of some immense Pink Floydian machinery, then floating off to some alien corners of outer space...

The second disc, Curiositas brings a mighty energy injection with the opening track, M.M.A.T.T. 33 - which is a mash-up of earlier Magic Moments At Twilight Time works, mainly from Creavolution (latter having been reviewed on this blog, too). It feels remarkably fluid for a mash-up, and with a driving rhythm that will certainly recharge battery cells after the previous meditative journey.

The A.F.C. Song continues on an energetic note, and rightly so - as it is a tribute, firmly rooted in space punk, to A.F.C Wimbledon. Dance, Freak gives us an ambiental, mysterious-sounding repose with sampled and processed voices, with a return to high-octane and tight riffs that have serious head-bobbing potential. 

Stille Nacht follows as a re-interpretation of the traditional song, which will definitely surprise many. It starts as an ambiental journey, with a sonic imagery evoking winter scenes, with a dreamy, but playful, piano arriving on the scene... until a firm and eminently electronic section cranks up the energy levels. 

As Christmas, its natural setting, and the whole sacred/secular juxtaposition of things around that time of the year got a thorough(ly) prog-rock treatment, why not look at (and dive into) Easter, too?

Thankfully, the following two tracks do just that - the first of those, Jesus Is Dead (Let's Eat Chocolate!) has a charming family connection, too with the mastermind behind this double album - as it features a very young family member (undoubtedly also a great fan of, uhm, secular aspects of Easter, namely the aforementioned chocolate).

We keep the energising and forward-driving, even propelling, rhythms and riffs, with a tempo that stays with us for the Jesus Has Risen (Let's Mow The Lawn) track, too - where we have more electronics joining the arrangements, with (no pun intended, or maybe a little bit...) spirited modulations of  synthesised sounds.

The bonus track, which ends our sonic journey from experimental to high-octane prog rock realms, is Live In Session (On Tudno FM) - an edit in three parts of a recent radio appearance, with special live versions of tracks from Curiositas.

Thus, definitely not shortage in creativity and inspiration, which means that hopefully other concept albums from Magic Bullet await us in the future. In the current rather unusual, often well-and-truly mad, times it is certainly a very welcome escape from everyday surrealism.

Juno To Jupiter: a vast musical journey by Vangelis

 

The concept album, inspired by NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, and recorded in collaboration with the superlative soprano Angela Gheorghiu, has had a turbulent adventure even before its official release.

Vangelis fans could acknowledge with a contented smile that the entire album is absolutely unmistakably the work of the Greek master, with entirely new tracks.

Not only that each track has, as it will become apparent in the review below, signature sounds and technical aspects we encountered on some of the most fondly remembered Vangelis releases of previous decades, but... each track perfectly expresses its respective title, and they perfectly blend together into a truly epic musical adventure. 

It is considered "old-fashioned" nowadays in electronic music, which is understood by many to be just EDM, to have a proper and programmatic approach to composition. Well, Vangelis, once again, approaches the album's concepts with meticulously developed and executed compositional intent. 

Each track is a musical description and an enthralling artistic interpretation of that track's theme - and it all fits into a phenomenal and truly epic journey through time and space. It takes us from references to ancient mythology to the vast spectacles staged by the giant of our Solar System.

As this is a Vangelis album, this is not a cold, cerebral space ambient work. 

Even if it had been, and even if it had resorted to classic space-rock means, one could still point out that, well, most of those musical means were actually invented and made instantly recognisable by Vangelis...

However, this is a passionate, epic, genuinely enchanting record, with seemingly superhuman imagination and compositional skills taking us from the most serene and ethereal harmonies to the most thundering unleashings of cosmic forces one can possibly imagine. 

Until its September release, hopefully the below track-by-track review can be a useful taster for what awaits the avid fans and those who may not have heard previously Vangelis's works.

1. Atlas's Push
The references to ancient mythology and space exploration run alongside each other throughout the entire album. The opening track refers to the Atlas V rocket that lifted the Juno space probe beyond our atmosphere, named after the Titan who had to hold, for all eternity, the celestial heavens.

The menacing electronic pulsations underpin mission control commentary... and when latter gives way to an evocation of outer space, we are suddenly propelled into the swells of characteristic sounds we may have heard last time on Antarctica and the Alexander soundtracks.

This is not a depiction of Juno leaving our atmosphere via some abstract and clichéd space ambient sound painting - this is the emotion, the exaltation that the humans who created and launched this probe must have felt.

Once again, Vangelis is the Great Romantic of human endeavour and exploration - depicting the human emotion rather than the abstract cerebral aspects of the central theme.

2. Inside Our Perspectives
This is a youthful, jazzy track of a laid-back, but distinctly head-bobbing, character. Vintage synth leads fly above pulsating waves of electronic percussion and bass arpeggios, with exquisite care taken in sound design, too.

The track induces in the listener a sense of dynamism, expectation, and excitement that must have surrounded the entire mission.

3. Out In Space

Again, we could have been treated to some space ambient collage of sounds, but Vangelis choses to depict in sounds a sense of awe. We have here the unmistakable brass and string sections that enchanted us on  the Alexander soundtrack and during The Thread ballet score.

Great swells of mighty chords are punctuated by crystalline piano arpeggios, this is again about our human emotions as we follow the mission from our tiny blue dot, as Carl Sagan described our cosmic home. 

The Earthly majestic sounds are underscored by a quite contrasting and eminently electronic sound pattern that, as a simple but effective artistic solution, manages to describe the alien strangeness of outer space.

4. Juno's Quiet Determination

It would not be a Vangelis record if it had not seized on the ancient mythological possibilities offered by the central theme.

Bouncy, staccato patterns of electronic pulsations are providing a shifting structure above which lush chords, ethereal vocal sounds, crystalline harp and glockenspiel notes start to hover.

And then there is an ethnic woodwind motif, which manages to sound ancient and futuristic, giving a mysterious and timeless feel to the music. As Ridley Scott said about the soundtrack to 1492 Conquest Of Paradise, Vangelis is uniquely able to sound ancient and contemporary at the same time...

5. Jupiter's Intuition

Orchestral swells and ominous timpani evoke mental imagery of Jupiter, the almighty deity and the giant of our Solar System. 

The thundering crescendo that elevates us to emotional heights is suddenly restrained, with a brief ethereal repose… before tidal waves of sounds return. 

Walls of our listening room swiftly vanish, we are in the realm of vast stretches of space and time.

6. Juno's Power

We are again elevated, propelled up and up on the emotional scale, with swells of grand string and brass chords supported by thundering staccato patterns from the electronic orchestra... 

If we recall Heaven & Hell or parts of the colossal Mythodea, well, we can again realise that only Vangelis can depict the Cosmic in this way with his unmistakable tuned timpani punctuating those lush textures.

Huge forces are unleashed here, but they never cross into the realm of uncomfortable. There is a majestic, but seductively simple, melody that appears above the vast sonic landscape, making this another hugely uplifting track.

7. Space’s Mystery Road

A playful, and once again a surprisingly jazzy track, with a laid-back electronic percussion pattern that provides solid structure for the playful piano improvisations, latter being sometimes punctuated by Vangelis’s instantly recognisable  timpani. 

One has to make a reference to Albedo 0.39, as Vangelis treats us to cosmic jazz-rock motifs during our cosmic journey, as he had done several decades ago on that classic space-rock album.

8. In The Magic Of Cosmos

Would we be hearing some predictable new age-ish electronic texture to evoke what the title of this track expresses? Perhaps yes, if this were not a Vangelis album...

Instead, we have an achingly beautiful, uplifting and expansive, but astonishingly economical motif of just three notes… brought to life by an epic orchestral arrangement. Just three notes build the poignant melodic motif that makes us feel as if we are expanding beyond our physical body’s confines.

Again, this is the Cosmos translating all its mysteries into a few sounds that we, infinitesimal beings, can just about grasp with our limited senses.

9. Juno's Tender Call

The track marks the first appearance of the sublime Angela Gheorghiu on this album. Her celestial vocals, which are intertwined with the vast orchestral tides, feel effortlessly improvised. 

One cannot imagine a more splendid evocation of Juno, the ancient goddess, than this blend of almost otherworldly vocals and exquisite synthesizer textures.

10. Juno's Echoes

We move from the ancient to more abstract and mysterious realms, this being an eminently electronic meditation. Melodic fragments appear and reverberate in those signature Vangelis sonic spaces, amongst gentle bell-like sounds. 

This is another peaceful track where the melodic motifs feel as if they were playfully improvised, but they are eminently restrained and highly effective in their beautiful simplicity.

11. Juno’s Ethereal Breeze

Angelic vocal textures conjure up the imagery suggested by the track’s title. Ethereal might become an over-used word in describing passages of this album, but this track's title is perfectly fitting.

Swirls and crystalline twinklings of sounds embellish the choral notes, preparing us for another very visual track that follows in our cosmic journey.

12. Jupiter’s Veil Of Clouds

Another immersive track, perfectly prepared by the previous composition - we glide into the mysterious world of Jupiter's clouds, we shift from mythological references to the scientific mission of exploring a fascinating alien world.

Vangelis is stunningly able to depict musically both the fragile translucent cloud formations and unimaginable atmospheric forces unleashed by the planet. The musical solution is elegant and effective, once again.

Synthesizer arpeggios, with very short, almost spiky sounds, are contrasted by floating, lingering notes on a piano - the Earthly meets the otherworldly. The pulsations get stronger, the timpani sounds appear with ominous rumbling and thundering… There are vast Cosmic forces at work here, not just ethereal and mysterious beauty.

13. Hera / Juno Queen of the Gods

After we have been shaken and stirred by Jupiter's unimaginably vast and powerful atmospheric currents, after we managed to marvel at its strange beauty thanks to Vangelis’s’ sonic wizardry, we land in an ocean of splendid tranquility.

The gentle notes from woodwind and harp-like synthesizer sounds melt, this really is the right word, they melt into gentle string textures - which, in turn, give way to soaring vocals by Angela Gheorghiu. 

Hera, and her Roman mythology equivalent Juno, are evoked here with reverence.

14. Zeus Almighty

The longest track on the album is dedicated to, whom else, the almighty Zeus of course, Jupiter’s equivalent in the mythology of Vangelis’s homeland. It is as if we are taking a journey in the mind of the Greek supreme deity, before we move back into Roman mythology with the following track. 

This is also a journey into the tumultous unleashing of forces that the planet shows us in unprecedented footage acquired by the Juno probe.

For those who have seen the documentary Vangelis And The Journey To Ithaka, perhaps one could describe the track as something like that literally breathtaking improvisation we can see in the film. The track feels improvised, with a firm structure but many gear changes, and an almost superhuman ease in going from translucent, fragile, ethereal sounds to thundering orchestral unleashings of immense forces.

For the technically minded, one side-note would be that we can hear those phenomenal and highly characteristic string patches we have marvelled at during the period marked by the albums Mask, Soil Festivities, and Antarctica.

One can almost see Vangelis unleashing these forces with impossibly effortless gestures on the stacks of keyboards. We hear Zeus's capricious temper, his human escapades, his dark and luminous moods... A very human deity, with an inner world as turbulent as the mighty planet's.

15. Jupiter Rex

The track is a natural continuation of the previous one, with thundering timpani and vast, ominous choirs… 

It feels almost as if we have moved seamlessly from  the ancient Greek to the Roman evocations of the supreme deity.

At the same time, both tracks conjure images of the colossal forces the largest planet in our Solar System is capable of demonstrating on Juno's unprecedented images.

16. Juno’s Accomplishments

Angela Gheorghiu’s ethereal vocals provide us with a respite after the mighty sonic tides we heard in the previous two tracks. 

Harp arpeggios and gentle piano notes are effortlessly gliding over waves and swells of characteristic string chords, whilst the vocal gives this track, too an almost mystical feel.

17. Apo 22

From timeless chapters of ancient mythology, from boundless expanses of the Cosmos, we suddenly return to Earth for a moment. 

We hear NASA mission control again, marking the joyous moment of the Juno probe successfully executing the crucial Apo-22 manoeuvre, which avoided the long flight through Jupiter's shadow that would have depleted the solar powered probe's batteries. 

The voice recording is infused with shimmering synthesizer sounds, giving the brief intermission a suitable spacey feel.

18. In Serenitatem

Only at the end of China, during the mesmerising finale entitled The Summit, and in the last movement of Mask could once one hear such ethereal sounds...

The fragile, translucent sonic elements are conjured up via the inimitable Vangelis alchemy of choral and string synthesizer patches, we are hearing evocations of cosmic waves, a sense of vastness and tranquility, made all the more atmospheric by electronic chimes as if they were emanating from some crystals from the depths of Jupiter.

The track fades into total silence and proves that once again, Vangelis has an unsurpassable ability to capture a sense of cosmic vastness via the most economic and restrained palette of sounds.

If one was mesmerised by the sublime finale of China, then the finale of this album will definitely have the same effect on that listener.

Vangelis has, again, taken us on a quintessentially human journey through near-impossible to comprehend distances of space, to colossal scenes effortlessly created by Jupiter... Once again, it is an ode to human endeavour, human ingenuity.

As the Rosetta album demonstrated, and Juno To Jupiter makes it all the more evident, Vangelis can surprise, mesmerise, and stun us with a musical and sonic inventiveness that knows no fatigue even in 2020... after so many decades of relentless and astonishing creativity.

Organic chemistry: That Which Prevails, the new album by Computerchemist

Computerchemist's ninth album is a solid island of complex Berlin School-style electronica in an ocean of myriad other mainstream / trendy electronic music releases. Once again, instead of taking some 'fashionable' commercial route, the music is true to its central aesthetic - and delivers on that.

The presence of 'organic' instrumentation in the electronic landscape is (or always should be) a very welcomed artistic choice. If one recalls Klaus Krieger's or Chris Franke's drumming on Tangerine Dream records, Klaus Schulze's drumming on his solo albums, or Manuel Göttsching's guitar improvisations enveloped by Schulze's electronic textures, then one knows what these combinations can deliver as an experience for the listener.

What we have here is much more electrifying than a purely synthesised soundscape. Dave Pearson's guitars and the drumming by Zsolt Galantai (of, among others, Ossian fame) adds a vital organic element to the Berlin School sound unfolding in these tracks.

We have tight sequencers, which are captivatingly pulsating and giving structure to the tracks' lush atmospherics, PPG Wave-like characteristic sonic gems (check out the final track especially), and impossible to resist mellotron-like textures. Everything a Berlin School aficionado could possibly want...

However, in addition we have fluid and, one dares to say, emotive guitar leads, with aforementioned drums on the third track. Even the drum programming on the other tracks feels organic and eminently non-robotic, unlike what happens in some other eminently synthesised, even synthetic, sonic journeys.

It makes the tracks feel more fluid, ever-changing, without static sequencer patterns. Things constantly develop, which is increasingly rare in latter-day Berlin School records & jams inundating the internet.

The opening track is already landing us in catchy Berlin School territory, and characteristically, the sequencers are there to provide structural support to animated electronic rock, rather than totally taking over.

Time Is A Great Healer (parts iii-iv) is another good example where we may believe we are in for a digital trip, as PPG Wave-like sounds open the composition, but then we can quickly take a flight with guitars making a solid appearance...

A Dali-esque Dreamer is a superb homage to Edgar Froese, who passed away five years ago. It once again shows how the tracks do not stand still and there is solid compositional development, whilst keeping an almost improvised feel, too with the guitar leads.

The title track, That Which Prevails is again a perfect example how a retro-sounding organ intro can develop into a fiery electronic rock piece.

Yours truly used to say, even write, about classic TD and Schulze gems that there were no straight lines, only waves and curved surfaces in those records. The same accolade applies to this album, too.

While there is clear compositional thinking with structural development, each track achieves that sense of catchy fluidity that normally only comes with inspired improvisations.

Computerchemist's catalogue can be purchased on CD from CDbaby.com and amazon.com in the US or direct from the artist's site via bandcamp.com. Digital distribution is through bandcamp.com, CDbaby.com, Apple iTunes, Spotify and other popular streaming services.

From vintage to new territories: Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger's Neuland Project

It is fair to say that a collaboration album from two musicians like Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger is no ordinary event in the timeline of electronic music history. In latter history, both names occupy a significant section with not just their time spent as members of the veritable institution that was and is Tangerine Dream, but also with their solo careers.

First of all, one must stress: this is not an album that rides some fashionable wave of mainstream electronica. Also, whilst it does have some not quite veiled references to musical elements one first heard in Tangerine Dream compositions, Neuland is not a recreation of some period from that band's history.

Something that may instantly captivate the listener, right from the first track, is the very evident pedigree of the two musicians. Whilst both had notable solo careers, the immediately recognisable Tangerine Dream DNA is very much present in the opening track's sequencer work.

The sequenced background and vintage-sounding lead propels us back to the mid-to-late 1970s TD sound. Thus, the opening track (Cascade 39) is in many ways pointing to a fondly remembered past rather than futuristic soundscapes.

Things change several times as the album progresses - already the second track, Road To Danakil, shows that darker atmospherics and thundering electronics are not at all alien to the two composers. In a way, one might recognise a certain gravitas in the arrangements and sonic choices, familiar to those who have heard the Machines Of Desire recent solo album by Peter Baumann.

One could always play the game of trying to guess which musician was responsible for which parts of the compositions one hears, and in this collaboration album, too it could be a rewarding game.

Clearly, there are solid sonic fingerprints from Baumann, the playful melodic motifs that punctuate the electronic soundscapes are unmistakably his - and make one think of his solo albums of yesteryear. Such motifs turn up in many places, from the aforementioned Road To Danakil to Dream 9 to Counting On Time (where not only the melodic pattern, but also the digital choir-like choice of synth patch is a direct pointer to e.g. Machines Of Desire).

The way in which Baumann & Haslinger can build effortless-sounding, fluid, and constantly evolving sonic ambiences is very apparent in the mentioned Counting On Time, and Long Now Icarus or Measure 3.

Something that starts as an almost ambient track can evolve into a playful, than animated track like 54_NOVO, with catchy melodic patterns, too.

The final track, Longing In Motion, is another example of something that evolves from the ambiences of vast cosmic spaces to a pulsating, then rather majestic, piece of electronic dreamscape. The forces that were unleashed in tracks like Dream 9 are held back here and gradually, subtly added to the discourse, with gentle pulsating patterns that make us feel firmly rooted in a Berlin School-style electronic Universe.

When it comes to the overall sound world of the album, a couple of aspects are worthy of highlighting.

First of all, it has a quite minimalist feel, in the sense that the sparseness of the arrangements might really stand out to some listeners.

This is not electronica with vast layers of sounds, everything is kept very distinctive and one really can very often count on one hand how many simultaneous elements are at play in the arrangements.

This creates an aesthetic where every detail stands out, as the very translucent and sparse arrangements do not want to, and cannot, mask or blur anything. The listener is not drowned in electronic showing-off of might, instead, one is allowed to contemplate often isolated sparse shimmers and specks of light in vast cosmic darkness.

One example is M-Tron Field, where often just one synth patch with just a few well-isolated distinct notes hover above a background pad (or not even that, just silence and vast reverberations). Every individual sound is allowed to take shape and float around, if it so wishes to, without being drowned in huge electronic orchestrations.

The other, more technical, aspect is the choices made for the depiction of rather astral spaces. Yes, there are some delays and phasing, however most often the task of suggesting vast sonic spaces goes to immense reverbs. Both percussive and melodic synth sounds can feel as they occupy a space only inhabited by some vast galaxies... and with such acoustic backdrop, the vintage leads (like the fiery solo in Measure 3) stand out even more and grab one's attention.

For an even more general and overall remark, there is an element of Neuland that is highly commendable even if someone's tastes or preconceptions might not actually match what one hears on this album.

Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger, in a stellar collaboration like this and with the very special pedigree they have, could have chosen to produce a trendy, even perhaps safe, mainstream electronica album.

They haven't - and it is a positive.

It is an honest album, that is consistent with their individual styles and compositional preferences, as proven also by the recognisable musical and technological choices they made for this album.

In today's EM landscape it is refreshing to hear such individualist approach and risk taking instead of some drive to fit a successful-sounding pre-existing mould.

Silhouettes - a perfectly titled new Klaus Schulze album

Quite a few years have passed since the last Klaus Schulze studio album, if we don't count renamed re-releases of material that essentially has seen the light as Contemporary Works Vol. I and II.

Silhouettes is perhaps his most introspective and calm album for some time, and as some have commented on the almighty internet that it is "disappointing", perhaps it is useful to first enumerate what we do not find on this album.

There are no hour-long multi-layered jams, no fiery Moog solos, no sampled phrases leaping at us at any moment, no high-octane sequenced percussion grooves, not even high-octane sequencer runs... No world music-esque Middle or Far-Eastern vocals, no cello or other instrumental improvisations.

So expectation management aside, what does one find on the new album?

It is a quite balanced affair. Four concise pieces of 15-to-20-odd minutes length lend to the album a structural balance, too.

Each piece has a construction that takes us from a calm exposition to a more dynamic part with Berlin School characteristics, and then to a calm conclusion.

The title track is quite fitting, as the lush pads create a pleasant and atmospheric sonic mist, in which the gently introduced sequencer patterns never dominate - they just sparkle and shine through this mist, with subtle touches and variations.

Chateaux Faits de Vents, or Castles Made Of Winds, continues this airy feel, we get an atmospheric intro with the instantly recognizable pad sounds and chord changes... and it leads to a mid-section with gentle sequencer patterns. The variations are subtle and perfectly suited for a meditative listening, we are not treated to any sudden moves or unexpected turns.

Der Lange Blick Zuruck, or The Long Look Backward, is similar in terms of its structure and the characteristics of the sequenced layers in its middle part. The choral sounds before and after the scintillating metallic sequenced parts are giving this track, too a quite ethereal feel.

In some ways, one could say that the sequencer work on these tracks is sharing some DNA with the floating, fluid, sparkling motif that returns from time to time in the track Sebastian im Traum, on the double album Audentity.

Quae Simplex, or That Simple, is the most energetic track - not just in its opening, as this is the only piece that starts with confident sequencer lines, but also in the fact that it contains classic and non-sequenced sounding drumming, which is jamming along the layers of sequenced motifs. In many ways, this is the track that looks back to an earlier sound and style - we can think of the '70s Schulze studio and live releases that featured drum tracks of this type.

There is, though, a stronger similarity at work on this album and it may be contributing to some of the more negative takes seen so far.

In its gentle layers and soft sequences, it reminds us in a very nice way of the feel of the double album In Blue for instance, or the more introspective parts of aforementioned Contemporary Works.

However, the similarities with the sequencer work on Shadowlands or Big in Europe are surprisingly, perhaps even too, strong. Down to the actual patterns we hear, the sounds they trigger and the time signatures, it really gives a strong deja-vu, or deja-entendu, feel from just few years ago. In some parts we may have the feeling that certain sequencer lines were straight transplanted from another album's sonic layers and even kept the same synthesizer patch selections for them.

However, if one dissects it too much, it ruins the overall feel and imagery of the album... so if one is bothered by these very strong similarities, perhaps best to treat the album as a standalone venture into a calmer, contemplative realm that we have not really heard from grand master Schulze for many years.

In that respect, it is one of the best and most comforting, gentle albums he's ever made.

It is, hopefully, not overstating that one hopes the great Berlin School master will continue treating us to many more such polished and confidently beautiful albums in the future.

A subtle but epic journey: Ourdom by Solar Fields

It is safe to say that by now one can firmly expect Solar Fields albums to have impeccable production, delicate care taken in sound design, subtle details in the mix and no self-indulgent technological showing off.

Ourdom, the very recent release by Magnus Birgersson aka Solar Fields is no exception - but apart from the polished technical elements, the musical aspects of the just-under 80-minutes-long album don't let expecting fans down either.

In today's collapsing attention span, shrinking to almost a singularity, it is quite uplifting to see an artist trusting us with well-structured, seamlessly flowing long pieces in the vein of the epics by Klaus Schulze.

Burning View, the album's opening track, is gently introducing the epic musical adventure with a floating ambience and subtle sonic ornaments. The gradual transition to solemn piano chords in Shifting Nature, then to the anthemic uplift of Into The Sun is a typical and very satisfying Solar Fields construct.

One can fully expect to be gradually taken to climaxes like Mountain King and Moving Lines, which are high-octane, but perfectly economically done EDM pieces with imaginative changes and variations.

Tracks like Wave Cascade provide a repose and a chance for introspection between the energetic currents of the aforementioned tracks, and Ourdom is very capable of shifting us between inner states as it does so with musical epochs, too...

Joshua's Shop with its ascending playful notes is taking us from electronic ambiences to a classical period, when the first glassy harp-like notes appear... As a delicate, nostalgic and exquisitely economic piece, it again shows how sound design, musical elements and thinking in structures can produce a concise and evocative sonic picture.

If one was not convinced by the range of imaginings heard so far, then A Green Walk and Parallel Universe can show us how eminently ambient atmospherics and spacey harmonies can fit in with the more soaring and driven passages of the album.

One can appreciate in some perfectly put-together long mixes the way in which different moods and tempos can be combined into a whole sonic journey, the mix becoming greater than the sum of its parts.

However, to state the obvious, here we have original material composed of 13 tracks, each seemingly conceived to be organic parts of the greater unit: just inspect closely the subtle way in which musical elements of a track can reference other sections they build up from or dissolve into...

It is a rare treat, and in a rushing world it is perhaps outrageous to strongly emphasise that Ourdom is best enjoyed, due to above reasons, as a single musical journey - and not track by track. Having said that, each track perfectly functions on its own, and, again, in typical Solar Fields fashion, each is a little electronic gem.

The album flows and connects very distant moods, from pure atmospherics to playful melodies to energetic motions, but the transitions are never with harsh edges...

On Ourdom, there are no right angles nor sharp edges, only ascending and descending waves and curves...

On the musical range of some Stranger Things

Image: Legacy Recordings

After one watches the first and second seasons of the Netflix hit series Stranger Things, it could be a perhaps strange exercise to listen through the two volumes of tiny electronic pieces that constitute its soundtrack.

Perhaps strange, as the pieces are often ultra-short in length - and many could rightly say that in such cases, without the soundtrack's themes being assembled into a suite, it might be difficult to enjoy the music without the visuals that it underpins.

However, Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein's historically accurate score, made with many by-now-classic electronic instruments of the early and mid-80s, can be a surprisingly pleasing musical journey even after the myriad tiny pieces are disconnected from the TV series...

What is particularly remarkable in Dixon & Stein's set of little electronic gems is that their often surprisingly economical electronic arrangements and structure cover a huge range of moods and sub-genres of electronic music.

Yes, they could have gone for direct musical references, after all, early '80s Tangerine Dream, the soundtracks of John Carpenter (also hugely influenced by Tangerine Dream) and the soundtrack hits of films like Ghostbusters from same period are infusing the TV series' sound world.

Instead, with careful instrumentation and very organic work flow based on improvisations and hands-on controls instead of computer automation of certain stages, the two key figures of the Austin-based electronic outfit S U R V I V E strike a highly personal and recognizable tone.

Microscopic gems like Home or Symptoms (both from the 2nd season) demonstrate eloquently, that Dixon & Stein can create exquisite quasi-ambiental and hauntingly beautiful electronic melancholy with just a few tens of seconds of economic material.

The ominous main theme has become a synthesizer hit in its own right, receiving a big nod also from the electronic maestros of Tangerine Dream in the form of a splendid cover version. Tracks like Soldiers land us in the world of early-to-mid-80s Tangerine Dream soundtracks like Firestarter and The Keep.

Whilst Kyle & Dixon can coax out of their analogue keyboards and ample modular gear such typically '80s-sounding, intentionally back-referencing and catchy synthesizer tunes, they also produce musical moments of utter darkness and menacing glory - after all, among the myriad elements successfully combined in the TV series, science fiction and horror combine to great effect.

The Upside Down or Descent Into The Rift are such musical moments of menacing eeriness, but Kyle & Dixon can counterpoint such sonic journeys with at the same time nostalgic and wonderfully worry-free musical moments like Kids and Walkin' in Hawkins.

Tracks like She Wants Me to Find Her or One Blink For Yes are achieving the seemingly impossible on their own, without the images: despite their short length, they are structurally perfectly constructed, develop hauntingly beautiful minimalist themes and even after they fade, they leave behind emotional impacts usually only reserved to elaborately long pieces.

What Else Did You See or Eggo in The Snow are also tiny tracks that demonstrate an enormous dose of empathy for the characters, and manage to project via sound their inner states.

In many ways a  central notable feature of this soundtrack is what it could have been (i.e. what it successfully avoided) and what it is not.

Dixon & Stein could have gone for wall-to-wall electronica, they could have gone for catchy cuteness, or for an '80s synth pop feel - as many electronic soundtracks have done so, then and now during the '80s revival.

Instead, they avoid the stereotypical sonic treatments and manage to produce a long series of tiny electronic gems that go from high-octane action to thundering menace to subtle ambiences and delicate, almost fragile, musical constructs of astounding simplicity and emotional effectiveness at the same time.

While they had the not so simple task (technologically and otherwise) to recreate instantly recognisable and time-accurate sound worlds of the era that the action takes place in, they could have approached it via the easier route: creating a replica sound with noticeably superficial earworm-hunting - after all, that's what many in so-called synthwave genre do nowadays.

However, the result is highly imaginative, uses its historic accuracy and its specific references with great restraint, while the music actually stays fresh, emotionally involved, non-intrusive and effective.

There is talk of a third and possibly even fourth series, so while the script writers have their work cut out (to what new heights can they elevate the story set within its both time and location-wise very limited Universe), it will be an interesting puzzle also for the music...

If the duo keep their approach heard so far in the first two seasons, and continue not to be whisked away by the very sound world they so carefully constructed, then one can be certain that '80s superficial electronic stereotypes will continue to be avoided successfully.

Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein (in the background) - photo: Sound on Sound

Tangerine Dream - The Sessions I.

It may seem like an overstatement after fifty years of existence and a vast discography, but Tangerine Dream's new release, The Sessions I., represents a truly key moment.

The electronic legends released their first live album, Ricochet, in 1975.

Around the time when other legendary pioneers were using sequencers for intentionally static patterns (Kraftwerk), for abstract fluid textures (Klaus Schulze) or pulsating melodic motifs to punctuate floating soundscapes (Jean-Michel Jarre), Tangerine Dream were creating something eminently different.

Ricochet and subsequent live albums by the band have shown a unique approach to electronic live music.

TD were producing high-octane sequencer-based improvised materials, with sequencers having been actually played on stage - such that the mind-bending multiple patterns were jamming hand in hand with electric guitar solos and keyboard improvisations.

The reason why The Sessions I. album is a notable moment is that the band, after a few decades of live renditions of studio album tracks, have returned to that dazzling art of extra-long improvised live compositions. After a session recorded and released on the album Particles, this is an hour-long journey.

The two, around half an hour long and largely improvised, tracks by Thorsten Quaeschning, Ulrich Schnauss and Hoshiko Yamane were recorded during the Edgar Froese memorial concert held in 2017 in Budapest and during a later live performance in Hong Kong.

If one makes here some references to albums of the past, it must be emphasized: this is not because the new album is a self-imitating nostalgia trip trying to just resurrect some old sounds for the long-standing fans... The references are being made merely because they may, to some extent, be suggestive of the tone and mood of the soundscapes on this album.

The opening track Blue Arctic Danube is something we have not heard for some decades, and again Ricochet or Encore spring to mind. This, in itself, is quite something, but even more remarkable is the fact that the material sounds fresh and brings a unique sound even in the electronic music scene of 2017.

Fans can immediately and instantly conclude, this is absolutely characteristic Tangerine Dream - from the first ambient textures to the trademark intertwined sequencer patterns to the arrival of achingly beautiful and softly played mellotron sounds (or of its digital resurrection rather, the Memotron).

The 30-minute musical journey is phenomenal, and without any previous knowledge of TD discography, one can be taken on a dazzling trip across many inner states - from mellow meditation to highly energetic pulsating sonic roller coaster rides to cinematic vistas constructed from sounds.

It is light-years above the way in which even now many use electronics and sequencers on stage - and with the live improvisation bringing in the various building blocks in a, one can safely say, typical Tangerine Dream manner, the listener cannot avoid being drawn into the musical dialogue that happens between the band's current three members.

Gladiatorial Dragon is of a different tonal register and it, too, is of a highly satisfying duration of just under 30 minutes - and fans of the Poland live album may perk up immediately, when they hear what is unleashed in this track.

While it starts with deceptively soft choir-like harmonies, a typical sneaky appearance of metallic sequencer patterns tells us something big is about to happen.

Well, indeed, TD never lets fans down when they decide to tease with such build-up. We know something is coming, and, by god of electronica, it does arrive.

The ultra-high-energy improvisation unleashed by the trio lifts the roof, this is electronic rock without electric guitars - but instead of guitar pedals being put through their paces, here we have nonstop changing filters driven into whistling self-oscillations, envelopes tightening and loosening the grip on the onslaught of sequencer notes, ring modulations and who knows what else unleashed by humans on their state-of-the-art electronic gear.

Yes, while it sounds highly technical, this is again a superlative lesson in how to make eminently electronic music in eminently human and passionate manner, without sliding into merely abstract sonic explorations or safely staying in the realm of some crowd-pleasing rhythmic content.

Nothing stands still in either of the two long tracks, one can hear the humans on stage improvising with vast powers at their fingertips and playing with and against each others' musical parts, as a jazz-rock band would.

If there was a live album in  the electronic music of the 21st century that can demonstrate to skeptics how the apparent contradiction between the nature of technology and the needs of highly organic live improvisations can be eliminated, then The Sessions I. is it.

Gary Numan's Savage - and a tale of music categorisation

Normally Gary Numan would need no introduction.

However, a recent clash between the rigid categories some operate with and the creativity that characterises the likes of Gary Numan perhaps warrants one - just to put in context a wider point to be made here...

It is a tale of how a label, which once described the most innovative and category-defying music, could be gradually so narrowed by some music industry machinery that it describes, at best, a single musical stereotype.

Normally we have had labels widen so much that they became all-inclusive. Thus they have lost all meaning due to the music industry's attempts of filling the new box with anything they could not fit into other rigid boxes.

Here, though, we have the remarkable opposite trend in its terminal stages.

As one of the most notable names in electronica, with a long list of names from Prince to Trent Reznor to Marilyn Manson quoting him as key influence, Gary Numan is to electronic music what Philip K. Dick is to the more philosophical section of science-fiction literature.

Although Numan is an artist who has had a key role in bringing electronic music into the mainstream pop culture, his dystopian visions, introspective lyrics coupled with his instantly recognisable sonic Universe elevated him way beyond electro-pop - ever since his Tubeway Army mega-hits up to his latest concept album.

Savage (Songs From A Broken World) is again a dystopian and mesmerisingly philosophical work, with musical elements that range from the familiar but characteristic Numan sonic palette to Middle-Eastern flavours.

A superb follow-up to Splinter, again with Ade Fenton in the producer's chair, we get thought-provoking meditations on our world and our existence, while the music takes us from electronic rock constructs to symphonic heights that linger in one's mind long after the record stopped playing.

However, being a distinctive voice nowadays can clash with the mechanical image certain music "specialists" have about the Universe.

Billboard, the well-known chart company, needs no introduction either.

Their definitions of album sales are nowadays desperate and gloriously inept attempts of moulding and bending eminently outdated music industry business models onto the new rapidly changing shapes of the digital world inhabited by its digital consumers.

As difficult as it may seem, Billboard recently managed to surpass themselves in their attempts to define this, to use a physics analogy, intricate quantum physics-governed world with rigid Newtonian models.

They have decided that Gary Numan's new album does not fit their dance/electronica category. As they expressed it, the album is basically "not electronic", instead it fits in the rock/alternative category.

The technical details happen to be such that around 95% of the album has been produced on and with electronic instruments, by one of the most recognisable electronic artists of the last four decades. As Gary Numan himself has rightly pointed out, it is the most electronic record since his album The Pleasure Principle (1979).

But the problem revealed by the Billboard absurdity is wider than any debate about one's list of one's studio gear.

The telling and worrying aspect is that key names in the music industry are grasping at labels that used to denote the most boundless, experimental or more mainstream, sonic world.

While they grasp at these labels, in an attempt to rigidly categorise the vastly varied palette used by electronic artists, they end up narrowing and narrowing the field of view.

Electronic, in their  rapidly shrinking understanding, basically can only mean dance - but even EDM, electronic dance music, is a ludicrously meaningless label nowadays as it has countless vastly different sub-genres and styles.

Unless an artist fits into this ultra-narrow box, even the likes of Billboard need to resort to a radical re-categorisation - Gary Numan and Depeche Mode are now "rock/alternative"... Listening to their recent two albums make this categorisation a superb absurd tragicomedy.

We have had categories like progressive rock widening, widening, until they lost all meaning as they just became a bucket for music industry luminaries to shove any out-of-the-box creation into.

The same happened to new age, starting out with a defined (albeit dubious) scope and intent, but ending up with artists like Tangerine Dream and Vangelis being categorised as such...

Remember alternative rock? The one where musicians ended up all looking and, rapidly, sounding the same and far from being alternative expressions of anything?

However, the recent Gary Numan episode is showing something very different.

Instead of desperately widening the meaning of a, hence increasingly rendered meaningless, category, they end up constricting a vast category to something that becomes an ultra-narrow one.

They can only fit inside it a tiny subset of just one stereotypical mainstream incarnation of what the musical genre really used to denote.

The wider and more imaginative that genre was once, the narrower its actual use as a label has become.

The darkest effect of this mental constriction, stemming from still not updated business models and patterns of thoughts that go with it, is that it started to feed back on itself.

The major names in the music industry, the likes of Billboard, have become eminently irrelevant in the greater scheme - but until their irrelevance is final, unfortunately they are still affecting musicians - and how they are judged by other elements of the rusting echo chambers that Billboard & Co operate in.

Artists producing imaginative electronica without dance loops and archetypal arrangements are placing themselves outside the one and only rigid, narrowed to a point of singularity, box tthat he mainstream music industry can think in.

One has to wonder what cataclysmic infliction changed the same music industry giants from celebrators and promoters of the most innovative and stylistically boundless music into dangerous automatons that can only imagine that music as something confined to their mental image of a dance floor...

Carbon Based Lifeforms...far from Derelicts

After a prolonged break (with the exception of some notable remastered versions of earlier albums), the categorisation-defying Swedish duo Carbon Based Lifeforms is back in full force.

Indeed, with their discography rooted in the more "ambient" side of the electronic music spectrum, but nevertheless often offering eminently head-bobbing-inducing tracks, too, one could wonder what the announced album Derelicts would sound like.

Instead of a departure into some stereotypical electronica, Derelicts is a 12-track album of quite some integrity and instantly recognisable as a CBL creation.

While Accede opens the album with that characteristic sound and patient development of hypnotically repetitive textures and sequences, CBL fans will be glad to encounter later on quite a variety of moods and tones...

Parts of Clouds or Nattväsen have references to, and echoes of, sound worlds first heard on World of Sleepers and Twentythree.

Equilibrium has that slow and rather irresistibly hypnotising rhythm one may have heard on the album Hydroponic Gardens.

The title track is really a stand-out piece, CBL at their most majestic and flowing at the same time, with deceptively simple, but anthemic, melodic progression lifting the track after its ambiental beginnings.

For a more abstract and eminently ambient sonic trip, Path of Least Resistance is a keeper - with a vast sonic landscape that reminds one of VLA and Twentythree.

One does not stop being amazed by the sense of melancholy mixed with majestic electronic soundscapes that CBL can infuse tracks with: ~42° is a perfect example of how the by now characteristic sonic elements are blended seamlessly by the electronic duo.

The structure of the album is also quite noteworthy, the soaring, uplifting tracks frame very nicely the quieter ambient works, plotting quite well a sonic journey through different states.

For example, 780 Days returns to the energetic opening sections of the album and lifts us out of the reverie, but there are no harsh edges and no sudden transitions - everything, as any CBL fan would rightly expect, flows very nicely.

Similarly, Rayleigh Scatterers and Dodecahedron provide melodic laid-back repose between more introspective tracks.

The mastering job done on the album is of a quality one would expect, the thunderous bass and percussion in tracks like 780 Days sit very well with the subtle and very refined ambient sonic elements.

This makes the album feel quite dreamy and light in places, even when the actual electronic sound palette is darker and more ominous.

CBL have found a very rare and specific register, like an elusive and mythical register on a mighty organ: Derelicts is, again, an eminently electronic album where technology does not take over, but from shaping subtle quasi-transparent constructs to processing sounds of thundering echoes of vast spaces, technology serves the artistic intent.

The result is, once again, a sonic world with a very personal touch and without the faintest sign of wanting to get lost in any commercial trend of electronica, whichever has been raging out there, outside the CBL sonic Universe, during the years that passed since the Refuge soundtrack album.

As the duo have reported in the recent past, the album would have been shorter but in its last creative stages suddenly a new track was born that simply had to be included on what has become a 12-track album in the end.

Overall, zero shortage of imagination again, and while keeping eminently characteristic CBL sound going through the entire album, there are no direct self-references - hence Derelicts feels thoroughly fresh.

It is a huge relief, that with the so-called "revolutions" (i.e. regurgitations of decades-old electronic music genres and style) like synthwave and such, some names keep looking forward instead of backward - and look at technology as a tool for creating new sonic visions (as contradictory as the term may sound).