Arandel: Solarispellis (Infiné, 2014)
May 13, 2015 at 10:51 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Arandel: Solarispellis
Second album from an anonymous French artist who claims to use all analog synthesizers with no sequencing or samples, although plenty of this album (especially the live drums on sections 11 and 9) sounds far too lushly orchestrated and layered to be completely recorded live. The tracks are all movements and sections rather than individually titled compositions. Sounds a hell of a lot like Jean-Michel Jarre, doesn’t it? Definitely yes, but this is clearly influenced by more modern developments in electronic dance music. “Section 7” is close to hazy midtempo kraut-disco, and “Section 11” is a peppy chiptune-like number. “Section 13” is where the heavy cosmic arpeggios come in, with Philip Glass-like organs meeting Goblin-esque synths. “Section 12” starts with clicking sounds and minimal keyboards, then builds into an ominous cinematic techno track. A lot of the interludes and shorter tracks sound like RPG themes. The whole album is charmingly retro, but at the same time doesn’t try to hard to recreate something it probably wasn’t around for in the first place.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
TrackBack URI
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
The Answer Is In The Beat 
Leave a comment