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...

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.

Magic Moments At Twilight Time - Creavolution Reborn

The Music & Elsewhere label has been a veritable force in underground music for some decades now, and its recent 25-year anniversary compilation was covered on this blog, too, not so long ago.

An historic detail is that the label, prior to it having been opened up to underground music spanning four continents, was established initially to release the albums of Magic Moments At Twilight Time.

Latter project began its life as Mick Magic's solo project in 1986, then later it was gradually expanded to what was called tongue-in-cheek "a husband and wife duo from north west Surrey", and eventually the headcount grew to four.

They produced a dozen albums, and Creavolution, originally recorded between 1994 and 1995, became the band’s biggest selling title.

As the original DAT masters were still playable, under the TMR Records re-release program the material was transferred to 64 bit digital audio at Brain Dead Studios, subsequently bounced on to reel-to-reel tape for a genuine analogue remaster. EMI's London CD pressing plant has then made it see the light of day as Creavolution Reborn.

As the press release accurately puts it, the album is quite "a mix of Hawkwind meets Blondie, then throw in Giorgio Moroder synths, Clannad harmonies, a touch of flamenco, gothic hints, an operatic baritone and have fun with rock & roll".

Both the opening and closing (bonus) tracks are ear candies for the fans of space rock, with a perfect blend of electronic atmospheres introducing the energetic compositions.

The tight Moroder-esque synth patterns and electronic effects we can hear on Starship Psychotron have delicate vocals acting as counterpoint, and the combination makes the composition quite ethereal.

That eminently space rock-era beauty can be heard in The Night Fantasia, too, with always-changing analogue synth sound alchemy and the catchy, very melodic and almost celestial-sounding vocals.

Driving rhythms with energetic riffs and processed vocals on Kronophobia can take us into almost anthemic rock territory, too.

Equally well one can mention, in this far from exhaustive analysis, the track Spirit Electric - atmospheric electronic drone gives first an almost early music feel, taking us back to early Renaissance times.

This time travel is much helped by the almost whispering vocals and melodic guitars - and then, just to show off the range on the album, the track can equally effortlessly fly off into a tighter and propelling rock realm, too.

This juxtaposition of the futuristic, the here-and-now, and the musical time travel into the world of classic rock harmonies with impossible to ignore rhythms is also exemplified by tracks like Purple Eyed & Mystified.

The CD is available for only £5 including P&P in the UK (with free CD for initial copies!). The additional P&P costs for Europe: + £3.85,  USA: + £4.85 P&P. Payable in Sterling (£) any method you wish! Paypal, Bank Transfer, Cheque, P.O. or even cash.

Collection is available from the studio by appointment if you are in the London area! Full details & to order: marcbell386@btinternet.com.

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...

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).

After half-century of Tangerine Dreams

Tangerine Dream, depending on who one talks to, is one of the, or is the, most defining names in electronic music and in what has become known as the Berlin school of electronica.

Today, the 29th September, we can celebrate 50 years of their existence - even if, alas, the founder and superlative pioneer Edgar Froese is no longer among us.

Tangerine Dream's discography is simply huge - and so is their musical range.

Instead of being boxed into specific sub-genres of electronica, they have produced extremely varied output in terms of era-defining studio albums, soundtracks for some true cinematic landmarks (think of Friedkin's Sorcerer or Bigelow's Near Dark), and series of live albums that often featured entirely new material (e.g. the spellbinding double LP Poland or the much later Logos).

It has always been unfair in general, and certainly unfair specifically to Tangerine Dream, to expect, with ardent but nostalgic fervor, the artists to produce the same style of material that marked their creative peaks some decades ago.

Tangerine Dream, as many high-mileage pioneers, have changed directions many times, sometimes questionably, sometimes mesmerizingly... often radically... but it has been a phenomenal journey from early psychedelia to unparalleled use of sequencers and trailblazing new technology to space ambient to electronic rock to soaring cinematic soundscapes and soundtracks.

Their most recent album, Quantum Gate, is part of that continued journey- its release being timed exactly on the 50th anniversary of the band's existence.

The band, which proved that eminently high-tech instruments can be used to expand what human imagination can work with and materialize into soundscapes without technology having taken over, even in its most recent line-up continues successfully Edgar's legacy.

Edgar Froese's mind and soul is present in each of the tracks - and it is admittedly a refreshing and perhaps to some a quite well above expectations sensation that the new album is absolutely quintessential Tangerine Dream.

While it sounds like a spellbinding quantum physics-inspired musical journey of uttermost technological prowess, it is also vintage Tangerine Dream and it is eminently human instead of what many other practitioners of electronic music ended up producing...

If we feel nostalgic about the peerless fluidity and seamless mind-bending sequencing of Love on a Real Train, then Proton Bonfire on the new album will satisfy us...

If we would like to revisit the spiraling heights of Ricochet or Rubycon, then Roll the Seven Twice or Granular Blankets will equally satisfy us.

If we want some mellotron flashbacks of Phaedra or the high-octane electronic rock of Force Majeure or Pergamon Live, then we have Tear Down the Grey Skies.

The album is unmistakably and instantly recognizably Tangerine Dream, and despite the absence of its founder and central intellectual luminary, the music is a superb continuation of its long history.

Perhaps it makes some ardent fans jump or resort to long-distance spells :) when reading this, but... one of the most remarkable aspects of this album is that it sounds more quintessentially Tangerine Dream than some of the past albums when several of the key figures of the band's history were still in the band...

Even if one picks out this one quality alone, huge respect to Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane and Ulrich Schnauss for continuing Edgar's creative thinking and producing something original, but at the same time characteristic of several decades of TD output.

Whether future artistic choices will take the new line-up into very different directions, or this characteristic sound continues, well, it is certain that we shall find out - as there seems to be no mellowing of creativity in the Tangerine Dream music laboratory.

Return to purity

The superlative multi-instrumentalist, who defined a whole era with his first album Tubular Bells, has returned.

Now this may sound bizarre, as Mike Oldfield has been quite active and very much "around" in recent years.

Disregard the cover design. Disregard the direct reference to Ommadawn, his third album more than four decades ago.

The new album is actually a return to an instrumental purity of utterly delicate nature, rather than just a revisiting of some older material. It is not a remix, it is not a re-take on the themes and motifs of that mid-seventies concept album.

After (too) many years of bizarrely ultra-commercial and self-conscious dance electronica (true, infused with immediately recognisable Oldfield magic, but still...), the prog rock legend has put aside the multitudes of software plugins and drum machines and hyper-digital shake-your-booty sequenced nightclub material.

What we have on the two long instrumental tracks (as another kind of return, one of form and structure, from decades and decades ago) is the eminently guitar-oriented, ethnically inspired, never just showing off virtuoso Oldfield.

It really is a return to the sound world of his first albums, with a subtlety and instrumental dexterity that is remarkable for the artist who is no longer in his early twenties, to say the least.

What makes this album stand out in the over-digitised, over-produced, ultra-self-conscious and in-your-face musical world of the second decade of this very different century is how organic it is.

Yes, it is impeccably produced, it is a product of state-of-the-art studio technology - but this remains, as this should be, just a background element in what we are listening to.

This is Mike Oldfield we have not heard since the 1970s, but in the best possible sense.

The intricate guitar motifs, the folk influences, the catchy melodic snippets that combine and develop beyond what one may expect even with full knowledge of his musical output, the superlative care for details (while still keeping it sounding utterly natural and improvised even)... this is the most astonishing Oldfield we can imagine. If we are fans of his organic, spontaneous-sounding instrumental output, that is...

Return to Ommadawn surprises with its purity, a purity of sound, but also a purity of inspiration.

The simplicity, which is the most difficult thing in music, and the intimacy of the two tracks is something that many instrumentalists should really, truly, take as lessons of musicianship.

Peter Baumann's Machines of Desire

Perhaps not quite literally after decades of absence (as he has produced and collaborated on some albums in recent years), Peter Baumann returned with a solo album. For Tangerine Dream afficionados, it really was a several decades-long pause.

Machines of Desire (with a perhaps unintentional hint of a classic Ray Bradbury tale's title, The Machineries of Joy) is a surprising affair.

Above all, it is an honest album on which Baumann has kept to his individual voice, without drifting (or downright flying) into current mainstream electronica - as Chris Franke and Edgar Froese have done in recent (but quite numerous) years.

It is a Peter Baumann album - not a dancey Baumann-esque album, not a Tangerine Dream-esque trip down memory lane, not electronic nostalgia and not a nod to populist electronic genres.

Much darker than the few Peter Baumann solo albums' material, much more cohesive in mood and structure, it really has the melodic and dramatic developments that sound familiar from his early solo albums. In this sense, after quite some decades, he seems to keep a remarkably stable voice and style.

Also, while it has sonorities and particular synth patches matching exactly some sounds heard on the by now vintage Transharmonic Nights, it is a contemporary album.

Tangerine Dream fans will recognise (especially on the second track, Searching in Vain) the characteristic, almost trademark, sounds of the PPG Wave and the familiar sequencer patterns. In some ways, this track is the most direct reference to the TD years.

The rhythms and melodies have that catchy Baumann signature, deceptively simple motifs that stay in one's head for a long time, without being cheesy or too playful (as in some of his early solo material).

There are processed choirs, vocoders reminiscent of parts of the ultra-rare The Keep soundtrack (the third track will jog our memory), precise sequencer and drum machine parts.

His orchestrations are refreshing in the current electronic mass production. Fast rotary speaker-altered pianos (remember Rubycon and Phaedra?) with vintage vocoders and mellotrons sit very comfortably with dark, state-of-the-art synthesized textures and organic woodwinds.

It is experimenting more bravely than some of its predecessors (not that there were many Baumann albums to refer to in this sense) - some of the darker and atmospheric parts from Transharmonic Nights stage a return in terms of mood, for example the opening track (The Blue Dream) and Echoes in the Cave.

Ordinary Wonder is perhaps the most surprisingly Transharmonic Nights-sounding track. Its melody, its playfulness, and even the synth patches remind one of that 1979 little gem. The ominous development and tense sequencers are a splendid little treat almost in the very middle of the album.

Overall, while the album may not at all be a 'wonder' in the current landscape of electronic albums, it is not an ordinary one at all.

Going back to the earlier point, it is a neat LP-length sonic package... Don't expect to be rocked to your foundation by it, but while satisfying our nostalgia of the perhaps golden era of Tangerine Dream albums, it is bringing a still fresh and bravely experimental Peter Baumann into our living room. Or wherever one may be listening to Machines of Desire...

Frankly, one was not expecting this degree of integrity from an electronic musician staging a comeback - but there we have it, instead of embarking on a forced-sounding and, as in the case of some continuously active big names like Jarre, near-desperate riding of the waves of current mainstream electronica... we have a genuine through-and-through Peter Baumann album in 2016.

Vangelis: Rosetta - a review

The freshly released, signed copy of Vangelis's new studio album entitled Rosetta has just had its first couple of spins...

The concept album, as not long ago signaled on this blog, too, is dedicated to the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission - and it was triggered so-to-speak by a discussion between Vangelis and ESA astronaut René Kuipers in 2012.

Some of the tracks composed between 2012 and 2014 have been made available on the internet, so these gave fans a little insight into the mood of the planned album.

It does not disappoint at all... Whist it has all the elements of Vangelis's more recent orchestral style (e.g. the sonorities and characteristic arrangements we heard here and there in his Alexander soundtrack are present here, too), it does not commit the excesses of Mythodea...

The rich and emotional, characteristically electro-romantic, passages alternate with exquisitely delicate space music.

Listening to e.g. Sunlight or the opening track Origins, we hear the technologically and conceptually up-to-date version of the spacey Vangelis of the late 1970s, with all the characteristic sensitivity and delicate care for every corner of his sonic world.

Between the atmospheric space-ambient soundscapes and the massive quasi-orchestral tides, we have memorable melodic tracks like Rosetta or Elegy that remind one of the delicate and catchy motifs heard on albums like El Greco (either the soundtrack to the film or his quite different studio album of same title).

In some of the early tracks on this album one finds quite some dose of intricate and fast arpeggiator use, with rapidly changing patterns, which we have not heard for quite some years in Vangelis tracks.

Perihelion is particularly interesting in this respect, with sequencer patterns and processed piano chords that will make Tangerine Dream fans perk up - especially as the chorused and rotary speaker-processed piano sound, with the bass sequencer pulses, is exactly what one can hear on Tangerine Dream classics like Rubycon. It is certainly a tribute to the space rock tracks of yesteryear, but it changes soon into a quiet meditation, then to resume its pulsating dynamism.

Elegy, after the tensions of Perihelion, is another gem of spacey meditation with delicate piano motifs - reminds one of the final tracks of El Greco (the studio album, not the soundtrack).

If the album started with a vast spacey overture, it ends with a floating, delicate piece, Return To The Void - the end of our sonic journey, until we press the play button again, of course... and it is very tempting to do so.

Yes, one can say that the album is a very digital affair, most of the sounds are eminently different from the former analog or analog-sounding patches - but with a typical warmth that always characterized Vangelis albums of even his most space-rock era.

It is a structurally and mood-wise impressively put together album, which resembles the sonic journeys that some of the Vangelis soundtrack albums take the listener on.

As Carl Walker from ESA mentioned about this album, when they played some of the tracks during Philae's landing: "When we put the images together with the music, we thought it was exactly how people would feel when they first saw the comet in close-up".

It is rather enchanting to hear Vangelis back in full force when it comes to visually inspiring, and originally visually inspired, concept albums.

Whilst his power to augment images with his music is well known and well appreciated, in this case, once again, Vangelis manages to create and augment imaginary visuals in the listener - even when the listener may not have ever seen any footage of the Rosetta mission...

Jean Michel Jarre - Electronica Vol. 2

The second installment of Jean-Michel Jarre's major collaborative project has freshly been released on 6 May, and it follows the volume entitled Time Machine.

Perhaps it is a sacrilege to start with a review of the second volume, but personally, not only it feels more cohesive than the first, but also, it brings back a certain majestic feel that he, and very few other, practitioners of electronic music have managed to infuse their compositions with. 

The list of collaborators is, once again, large and illustrious: from Gary Numan to Hans Zimmer to The Orb, there are many legendary names on the track listing.

The flow of this album, from its rather beautiful and economic opening theme right to its reprise heard in the final track, is perhaps much more heroic and even anthemic than the rather caleidoscope-like first volume. 

This is by no means an exhaustive track-by-track review, but one has to pick out a number of tracks to illustrate the span of the material on the album...

There are of course incursions into very strong, driving, and at the same time rather dark, rhythms, too. Exit, featuring Edward Snowden's poignant monologue, is a good example where the very fast-paced electronic background would serve as a perfect soundtrack to a high-octane video illustrating the octets of internet traffic circulating in the myriad network fibres...

However, when one would expect some typical electro-pop when looking at the collaborators listed on some tracks, the surprises keep coming.

Brick England (feat. The Pet Shop Boys) is, with all its lighter tone after the anthemic album intros, a perfect blend of softly melancholic vocal lines and more animated electronics, the tension between the two working superbly. 

Swipe To The Right (feat. Cyndi Lauper) is, again, by no means an '80s or '90s synth-pop tune... Surprisingly, it is rather darker and keeps the album's overall (in a good sense) heroic thrust. What perhaps surprised one the most was the sudden emergence, at the very end of the track, of phased vintage strings and electronic percussion patterns typical of Oxygene.

In the somewhat expected to be "heavier" and darker register, we are not let down... Here For You (feat. Gary Numan) is an instant classic, with Numan's soaring vocals and the almost ode-like electronic backing making yet another very memorable track that would have worked perfectly on any, at the same time dark and uplifting, Numan albums, too.

Why This, Why That and Why? (feat. Yello) takes us to the realms of existentialist meditation, along the lines of what one may have experienced emotionally when listening to Daft Punk's Touch (from Random Access Memories), Here, too, the text, the vocal quality and the electronic atmospherics underpinning the monologue work extremely well for a mood piece.

A purely, in a way ambiental, mood piece of soundscapes and voices, bringing hommage to the electronic instrument creators Leon Theremin and Bob Moog, is the Switch on Leon (feat. The Orb). These Creatures (feat. Julia Holter) starts with a sonic surprise, when for a few seconds of her vocals we may think we landed in Laurie Anderson's O Superman... but the track evolves rapidly into a blend of crystalline vocals by Julia and gentle electronics in the background

There is even a pinch of Hollywood greatness here... Electrees (feat. Hans Zimmer) is far from some  mere snippet of symphonic soundtrack, though. Admittedly a pleasant surprise is not only the structurally well-rounded short track that can take the listener through a number of emotional levels, but so is the absence of minimalist string patterns one may have expected. Instead, it is a lush piece with patterns actually coming from the very electronic-sounding sequencer voices, giving nice counterpoint to the very organic (incl. choral) lead lines.

The final two tracks return to "pure" Jarre, in the sense of them not listing collaborators or co-composers, and nicely round off the album material with a reprise of the opening theme, too. 

Overall, a very noteworthy outing that follows Electronica Vol. 1 - with the upcoming tours featuring material from these two albums, too, it will be interesting to see how the collaborative pieces are presented in concert settings (without the featured musicians).