BIOMECHANIQUE: Live at Lumpy Gravy (CD on Psychsomatic Records)
This release from 2002 offers 53 minutes of a live performance from Los Angeles in 1998.
Biomechanique is: Luke Collins and Jim Goetsch.
This music is a union of trippy Drum & Bass, breakbeat and hip hop melded with more "traditional" trance sensibilities, almost like Weather Report meets Future Sound of London.
Drums belt out snappy tempos with multitracked verve. These energized rhythms are immersed in a burbling pool of electronics, swarming drones and squealing chords that generate a distinctly stellar panorama. Riffs are introduced with abandon, and quickly swept away in the tide of peppy beats, battered about into clever melodies that rise in substance with each passing moment. The sonic morass becomes more and more enticing as the otherworldly strains merge with a dancefloor temperament.
Slippery passages of bubbling electronics are vitalized by relentless breakbeats, transforming the astral mood into a celebration. The trance becomes invigorated, pulses accelerate and body-swaying leads to foot-stomping. Meanwhile, the urgency of the rhythms are tempered with dreamy swarms of shimmering ambience as the electronics expand like a released gas, saturating the audience with soothing elements. Drones realize more than transient form as they attribute a softness to the rhythmic core.
The fusion of driving percussion and atmospheric timbre are masterfully crafted to achieve a trance that is vivacious with brisk animation.
KLANGWELT: Weltweit (CD on Spheric Music)
This CD from 2002 offers 78 minutes of dynamic electronic music.
Klangwelt is: Gerald Arend.
Immersed in experimental sentiments, this music is strongly grounded in the Berlin school sound, with lavish layers of sequenced electronics pursuing melodic threads that seem to lead to greater heights while whirling in head-spinning circles. Intricate riffs explode with rapid delivery, crisply defined and richly resonant. The audience is already mesmerized and captured by the time the E-perc enters to propel the melodies to vaster territory. Grandeur overwhelms the music, drenching the listener in an environment of massive implications and exhausting compositions.
High, reedy strains coexist with subterranean tones, achieving a full spectrum of sound that is wholly dedicated to jubilation. This is the type of music that invigorates while appearing to exhaust its audience, infusing each note with an open-state quality that seems to generate more power with every passing second.
There is a cheeriness to this music that makes the intensity congenial and holistic. Delicate tendencies lurk within the relentless velocity, tainting the majesty with a friendly demeanor. Entertainment runs parallel with the music's awe-inspiring nature.
The bulk of this release consists of tracks 5-6 minutes long, building thrillingly to an 18 minute epic final piece that dazzles the already-enthralled audience.
SYN: Soundwave Traveller (CD on Spheric Music)
This CD from 2002 offers 72 minutes of fanciful electronic music.
Syn is: David T. Dewdney from Scotland.
Delicate electronics swim in a medium of atmospheric textures, punctuated by interstellar sounds which appear with astral demeanor to convey limitless vistas. Pulsations vibrate with extraterrestrial resonance, generating a wholly spacey environment for the music.
Dreamy passages lead to periods of greater vibrancy, as the textures become laced with driving sequencers and crystalline E-perc. Loops commence intermingling with each other. merging to produce fresh cycles of exhilarating harmonies. Whirling sparkles settle into expressive definition, attributing the melodies with a pleasant shimmer.
Synthesized guitar can be heard lurking in these ethereal pieces, lending an almost romantic edge to the cosmic journey. With the introduction of synthetic percussion, the music takes on an ascendant quality, rising from the mists of its own creation to scatter atmospheric clouds with subtle rhythms. The music is moving into more energetic territory, gaining dynamic substance as it lifts from its calming origins to explore more potent riffs.
This music explores long-form structure, with only 3 tracks on this CD, the shortest being 16 minutes long. This extreme duration affords Dewdney the opportunity to explore every nuance of his sonic intention, elaborating on themes with evolutionary compositions that refuse to run out of viable options. Tasty and rewarding are the results.
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