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Arsnova Art Abscons |
Arti & Mestieri Astra |
Can Atilla Atomic |
Audrey Horne Jon Auer |
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Fear & Anxiety (1992, 31.38/42.36) ***½Dark CloudsJihad House of Ben Prominence Fata Morgana part 1 Fata Morgana part 2 [Reissue adds: Transi/Nova (live)] |
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Transi (1994, 41.55/47.41) ***½PhantomChase Transi Dance Macabre Sahara 2301 Nova [Reissue adds: Jihad (live)] |
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The Goddess of Darkness (1996, 40.42) ****Kali - Demolition and MassacreFury - The Daughter and the Simoom, After the Simoom Morgan - The Fate Awaits Inevitable Isis - She Wakes the Dead The Gorgons - Never Look at Her Eyes |
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The Book of the Dead (1998, 44.22) ***½ |
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| Prologue: Re Ankh Interlude 1: Nut The 42 Gods Interlude 2: Anubis Held of Iaru Interlude 3: Sekhem The Judgement of Osiris |
Interlude 4: Nephthys Ani's Heart and Maat's Feather Epilogue: Hapi |
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Android Domina (2001, 51.09) ***½Android DominaAll Hallow's Eve Horla Rising Mother Succubus Bizarro Ballo in Maschera |
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Biogenesis Project (2003, 44.57) ***½Introduction - Biogenesis - Melt DownEscape Mother Earth Metamorphosis Humanoid's Breakfast Against the Meteors Trust to the Future |
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Apparently, Arsnova (or Ars Nova) originally formed as long ago as 1983, splitting and reforming before beginning their career as we know it. At various points in their near twenty-year history, Arsnova have been that rarest (uniquest?) of things, an instrumental all-female progressive band, not to mention one from Japan; their longevity is rather more impressive than the exceedingly ill-advised S&M video they shot a while back, though... Male managers, eh? Keith Emerson fan Keiko Kumagai is their sole consistent member, so it's not surprising that their sound is heavily keyboard-based; mostly digital synths, although she owns a Prophet 600, brought over to Europe on their two visits. If I may level one major criticism at the band, it's the lack of musical variety across their career, despite bringing in guest musicians in places to liven things up.
They kicked off with 1992's Fear & Anxiety, a solid, ELP-ish effort, making up for what it lacks in originality (Prominence contains some cheeky quotes, not least from Focus' Sylvia) with heaps of energy and some flashy playing. Despite the rather grotty string and (especially) choir sounds on the album, for some reason, Keiko opted to use early Mellotron samples on one track, with strings and flutes on House Of Ben, very clearly not from a real machine. Two years on and '94's Transi is, essentially, more of the same, the title track being probably the best thing here. Keiko goes for the 'Tron samples properly this time, with strings, flutes and choirs on the title track, clearly sampled, plus strings on Dance Macabre, Sahara 2301 and Nova.
1996's The Goddess of Darkness seems to be a concept album (in an instrumental kind of way) based around exactly what it says on the box: the Bad Girls of mythology, including Kali (Hindu), Isis (Egyptian) and the Gorgon (Greek). Despite being written in basically the same style as before, this is Arsnova's most accomplished effort yet, their influences (influence?) coalescing in a more cohesive way. Mellotron samples here and there, with strings on Kali and Fury plus flutes (and over-extended choirs) on Morgan, with possible strings and choirs elsewhere. Every two years, on the nail... '98's The Book of the Dead, apparently released in their home country as Reu Nu Pert em Hru, with a possibly slightly different tracklisting, is good, if not quite up to the standards of its predecessor. It has a distinctly Ancient Egyptian vibe, as you've probably guessed from the track titles and sleeve art, although the keyboards are, maybe surprisingly, given the album's historical bent, more digital-sounding than before; only two samplotron tracks this time round, with a flute part on the brief Interlude 4: Nephthys and a major string part on Ani's Heart And Maat's Feather.
It's difficult to know what to say about 2001's Android Domina without repeating myself. By and large, it carries on in the band's by-now familiar pattern, although what the hell is with the orgiastic (female) panting and the S&M sound effects that open the album? It's difficult to work out how many of the album's string parts are actually Mellotron samples, although a brief part in Succubus has to be a definite, while All Hallow's Eve and Bizarro Ballo In Maschera are probables. 2003's Biogenesis Project adds wailing guitar and a science fiction concept to the mix, but is otherwise just another Arsnova album. Yes, even when listened to with a gap of months between plays, ennui begins to set in. Keiko adds really obvious samplotron strings to closer Trust To The Future, although all other string parts are generic.
If you go for 'that Japanese prog sound', all bombastic Emersonian synth work and techno-flash, you'll almost certainly like Arsnova; there's little to really dislike here for the discerning prog fan, although more than one album on the trot can be slightly hard work. There may well be more Arsnova samplotron albums; I shall report back soon.
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Der Verborgene Gott [vinyl version] (2010, 48.48) **½MorgendämmerungAhndung (a Travers les Collines) Liliensonne Erscheinung! Es ist Zeit Effigy (im Abbild Verbrannt) In Ruinen Geboren In Abscondinium Magik (un Autre Transformation) |
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Art Abscons are a surprisingly anonymous German neofolk duo, whose second (?) album, 2010's Der Verborgene Gott, is infuriatingly available in completely different vinyl and CD-R editions. Is it any good? Matter of opinion; two or three tracks at a time are very listenable, but nearly fifty minutes in one large, gloomy, indigestible lump is a bit much, at least for this listener. Best track? Possibly Liliensonne, although In Ruinen Geboren has its moments.
Someone plays sampled Mellotron flutes and choirs on In Ruinen Geboren; they may well be elsewhere on the album, too, but it's hard to tell with the various synthesized strings to be heard on most tracks. Should harmoniums, rather dreary choral vocals and deep, intoned German sound like your bag, you may well go for this, but a twenty-minute excerpt would suit me a lot better.
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First Live in Japan (2007, 75.32) **** |
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| Gravitá 9.81 Strips Corrosione Positivo/Negativo In Cammino Valzer per Domani Mirafiori Nove Lune Prima Mescali/Mescalero |
Nove Lune Dopo Aria Pesante Dimensione Terra Kawasaki Glory Marilyn Arcansiel Alba Mediterranea 2000 |
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A revitalised Arti & Mestieri appeared around 2000 and began gigging again, including their first visit to Japan in 2005. The 'can't argue with that'-titled First Live in Japan is a document of their Tokyo date on June 12th; the playing from the seven-piece ensemble is faultless, their fusion/prog crossover working well in a live context, without sounding cluttered, largely due to band members knowing when to shut up. The bulk of the album is divided into two 'suites', beginning with side one of Tilt played straight, following with an edited version of Giro di Valzer per Domani and winding up with a handful of more recent tracks. It's pretty obvious in this context how much jazzier their second album was than their debut, although the last Tilt track here, In Cammino, is almost straight jazz, leaving only a handful of tracks that fall more to the progressive side of the spectrum.
Now, I have to say that despite being assured that Beppe Crovella's credited Mellotron is real, there's no sign of it on either the CD sleeve or the pics from the trip on the band's own site. In fact, there's no sign of the Rhodes either, never mind the acoustic piano (which clearly isn't), although a B3 sits proudly at the front of his rig. The choirs at the beginning of Strips sound particularly authentic, key-click and all, so they're damn' good samples, but I'm quite certain that no Mellotrons were hurt during this recording. The rest of his 'Mellotron' use is split between the strings and choirs, switching deftly between the two on Glory, although he only uses it on a handful of tracks, sadly.
So; an excellent live album, showing that the ageing band have lost none of their chops. Fake 'Tron, but buy this and support the chaps at MoonJune.
See: Arti & Mestieri
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Demo (2007, 47.28) ****½Silent SleepThe Rising of the Black Sun The Weirding... Cosmic Wind The Dawning of Ophiuchus Winter Witch |
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The Weirding (2009, 78.45) ****½The Rising of the Black SunThe Weirding Silent Sleep The River Under Ouroboros Broken Glass The Dawning of Ophiuchus Beyond to Slight the Maze |
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Astra first came to the world's attention a couple of years ago (or at least those of us who care), when they posted some demos on their MySpace page. Forming from the remnants of Silver Sunshine, their Mellotron-heavy psych/prog/hard rock is an absolute delight in this age of ever-more-tightly defined sub-sub-sub-genres, although the kind of purists who have to label everything will probably call them 'prog/doom' or somesuch nonsense. Obvious pointers are Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Crimson, although a general early-'70s vibe pervades their work like the stink of old joss sticks and patchouli.
A kind man going by the name 'Gandalf' sent me a CD-R of those first few tracks MySpace tracks; what we're looking at here are six lengthy, prog/psych tracks, loaded with 'Mellotron', sounding like a vague cross between Crimson and Floyd's kid brother let loose in a studio. With a Mellotron, or at least, samples. That's the ten-minute Silent Sleep, anyway. The Rising Of The Black Sun is a lot darker, segueing into The Weirding..., a far heavier, jamming proposition, like Black Sabbath on (even more) drugs, or Crimso's Cirkus' bastard son. Since Gandalf sent me the CD, the band have added three tracks to their page, with the 'Tron-free Cosmic Wind, the acoustic Winter Witch and another mighty prog piece, The Dawning Of Ophiuchus. 'Mellotron' all round from Conor Riley, with flutes and strings on Silent Sleep, The Weirding... The Dawning of Ophiuchus, with just strings on The Rising of the Black Sun and standalone flutes on Winter Witch. Listen, these tracks are MAGNIFICENT; mad, epic progressive hard rock that could actually do something for the band, if they can hitch a ride with Black Mountain's audience, say.
2009 brings their debut album, The Weirding and guess what? It's every bit as good as you'd expect. Several tracks are reiterated from their demos, with a couple lost and a couple gained, pretty much as you'd expect. The title track still sounds like Crimso's Cirkus, and there are a few other fairly obvious reference points, too, but overall, it's a killer. It is overlong, as I complain so often regarding 'full-length' CDs, but this isn't an album to which you'll necessarily listen too closely; it's more about the mood it creates, and as such, nearly eighty minutes isn't that excessive. 'How do they get such a long album out of eight tracks?', I hear you cry. Two over fifteen minutes, that's how, most of the rest being in the 'long rather than short' category. Some definitely are better than others, the title track probably taking 'best track' prize, but there's nothing here, despite the free-form sections, that had me reaching for the 'next' button.
Conor Riley and Richard Vaughn both play 'Mellotron', although I have it on good authority that they used the Memotron-in-a-fake-Mellotron-case you can see on their site. There's quite unfeasibly large slabs of it chucked all over everything, though, notably, never gratuitously. Good trick if you can do it... Strings and choirs all over the place, as you'd expect, with heavy brass and flute parts on the title track, exacerbating the Cirkus comparison, while the strings in The River Under are heavily redolent of Genesis. OK, so originality probably isn't the band's strongest suit, but with this much fakeotron, who's complaining? Just go out and buy this album, or failing that, stay in and buy it. Astra deserve to be huge, but won't be, because in the unlikely event of the fashionistas ever hearing them, they'd be hounded out of town for terminal uncoolness. Except that, of course, they're probably the coolest new band around for those in the know. Buy. Just buy.
See: Silver Sunshine
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Ave (1999, 77.43) ****Time Border PassengersBreathing Under Pressure Japetus Dreams Time Seller Under the Rain Bach's Air Pray of RA Abarcus |
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Can Atilla's unique on this site: he's the only Turkish musician featured, probably because it seems pretty unlikely that any Mellotrons made it to Turkey, although several got to Greece and at least one to Bulgaria. According to his website, 1999's Ave is his eleventh album, released to celebrate Tangerine Dream's thirtieth anniversary, which it does by slavishly copying their mid-'70s to early-'80s styles across seven tracks, including a so-called 'bonus' one, although I heavily doubt whether there's a version of the album available without it.
This really is a Tangs-alike album: 26-minute opener Time Border Passengers even sounds like it should be on Phaedra or Stratosfear, doesn't it? And that's before you've even heard it... When you do, it sounds like it should be even more, with classic 'Berlin School' sequencers, electronic percussion, the full works. The next three tracks are similar, if (slightly) shorter, while Bach's Air is exactly what it sounds like and the 'bonus' track, the interestingly-spelled Abarcus, is a full-on sequencer piece.
Plenty of presumably sampled 'Tron, as the album was recorded at Atilla's own studio, with choirs and flutes all over Time Border Passengers and strings on Breathing Under Pressure, although the flutes on Japetus Dreams sound synthesized. Surprisingly, although that's about half the album's length, that's it on the fakeotron front, the other tracks relying on pseudo- (or real?) analogue synths. Overall, a good fake Tangs album, for those who just can't get enough of the style. There are several other acts sticking to that '70s Berlin template, but Ave does it as well as the best of them. Recommended, as long as you're into EM.
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Wonderland Boulevard (2005, 32.37) **½ |
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| (You're) a Shining Star Monkey Fingers The Shelter Being for the Arrival of the Maharaja Sailor (part 1) Being for the Arrival of the Maharaja Sailor (part 2) Sweetest Symphony Girlfriend in a Coma (You've Got) the Shining |
Devil May Cry The Jam Out |
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Aargh! German pop/punk! OK, Die Toten Hosen (the dead trousers, as it happens) have been around forever, but does the world really need a slightly accented version of Green Day? Then again, local scenes are notorious for throwing up their own versions of popular bands, even in this age of universal communication and, when push comes to shove, why shouldn't a bunch of young German guys play the kind of stuff they like? They are a bit of a clone, though... 2005's Wonderland Boulevard sounds an awful lot like Green Day's American Idiot, released the previous year, in its mix of the aforementioned pop/punk and slightly more thoughtful material. I rest my case, m'lud. Track three, The Shelter, is even an uncharacteristic string-laden ballad, not a million miles away from Boulevard Of Broken Dreams... I think you get the idea.
Someone plays some nicely upfront 'Tron flute samples on Sweetest Symphony, although all other orchestral instrumental parts sound real. To be honest, this is all rather uninspired and second-hand; probably good enough for a provincial market (sorry, Germany), but not good enough to cut it in the world's premier 'markets' (he said, slipping into music-biz speech for a second). Thoroughly average, with a pathetically sexist sleeve design to boot.
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Le Fol (2007, 52.18) *** |
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| Last Chance for a Serenade Jaws Last Call Threshold Monster Afterglow In the End Pretty Girls Make Graves |
Bright Lights Hell Hath No Fury I Wish You Hell So Long, Euphoria |
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Audrey Horne (2009, 50.01/73.04) ***½ |
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| These Vultures Charon Circus Down Like Suicide Blaze of Ashes Sail Away Bridges and Anchors Pitch Black Mourning Firehorse |
Darkdrive Godspeed [The Acoustic Sessions bonus disc: Desert Song Carrie Bright Lights Nowhere to Run Rearview Mirror Halo] |
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Audrey Horne (named for a Twin Peaks character) have links with black metal cult Enslaved, but, going by their second album, 2007's Le Fol, they seem to have more in common with Seattle's '90s grunge explosion and the poppier end of the current metal scene. While by no means a bad album, it's too generic, at least to these ears, to stand out particularly; at least we're spared more ridiculous grunting and blastbeats, I suppose. Herbrand Larsen (Gravdal) guests on keys, including alleged Mellotron, with strings all over opener Last Chance For A Serenade, flutes and strings on Monster, flutes on Afterglow and choir on In The End, although I'm fairly sure it's all sampled.
Their eponymous third release is noticeably better than its predecessor, largely due to its extra reliance on old-school riffing, as against the modern hard rock disease of bashing out a few generic chords and pretending it's a riff (see: the likes of Velvet Revolver and Audioslave, not to mention recent Rush albums, ignominiously). That isn't to say this is a classic, but the fact that you can actually hear identifiable, (vaguely) unique chord sequences has to be a bonus. Best tracks? Charon, Sail Away and Firehose, probably; anything with a decent riff, basically. The solo 'Mellotron' flute part on These Vultures that opens the album is the sample giveaway, with a low note that holds for at least twice as long as is actually possible, as does the extraordinarily lengthy string chord on closer Godspeed. More flutes on Down Like Suicide, with strings on a few other tracks, though some of them could be generic samples rather than Mellotron ones.
Overall, Audrey Horne is far better than expected, if not actually a classic; cautiously recommended for fans of old-school hard rock. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Le Fol, a middling hard rock album of a modern disposition, its one outstanding feature being the organ and fakeotron work, which isn't really a recommendation.
See: Audrey Horne
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Songs From the Year of Our Demise (2006, 54.54) *** |
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| Six Feet Under Bottom of the Bottle The Likes of You Four Letter Word Angelita You Used to Drive Me Around Song Noir Daytime Lullaby |
Josephine Cemetery Song My Sweet Unknown Adios Sundown Wicked World The Year of Our Demise |
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Jon Auer is one of the chief architects of The Posies, so it's no great surprise that his first solo album, Songs From the Year of Our Demise, tends towards the powerpop end of things. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, the album's sequencing puts several weaker songs near the beginning of the album, although it starts to improve around the fifth or sixth tracks. Best track? Maybe My Sweet Unknown, although most of its mid-album neighbours are reasonably good.
Although David Einmo is credited with Mellotron, it sounds (quite startling so, in places) like samples to my ears, with strings and cellos (under some cheesy organ) on The Likes Of You, very squeaky (i.e. above top-note) strings on Angelita, with what sounds like flutes and real strings on You Used To Drive Me Around and a brief string part at the end of Song Noir. So; decent enough album, but only sampled 'Tron, and not that good in places, either.
See: The Posies
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