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SynGate CD-R 2146

What a lucky finder and a pleasant surprise this Alien Nature/ TMA’s collaboration. Medusa is a magnificent album. A long musical piece segmented in 9 acts which succeed on one to another between spatial lifelessness and hypnotic rhythms. A music which moves smoothly and gets entangled in its loops and which embraces progressive rhythms which pound randomly under suave fragrances of a Berlin School prowling between the opposites of its roots.
Awakening starts this long cosmic journey with weighty and intriguing reverberations. A heterogeneous sound burst where sounds take strange guttural forms, in a metallic and biting musical universe. A lugubrious and cold intro, where metal complains under fine synthesized radiances, which is melting in the first stammering sequences of Backyards. Initially, the sequence flows as arrhythmic palpitations under chloroformed cymbals. Quietly she permutes with a harmonious musical crescendo, encircled by another hiccoughing sequence supported by fine percussions which structures an increasing rhythm. The movement develops gently. Sweetness pearl of a hypnotic Berlin School style which overlaps a languishing pace, harmonized by a foggy flute. A magnificent piece of music which reminds the rebirth area of Berlin Scool, with Mergener / Weisser.
Dreamland floats with heaviness thanks to its circular loops which cross slow, deviant and undulate layers. An ambient track which sways till the fine strummed keys that are mixing to a fine acid rain at Flying Cities opening. A melancholic intro which loses its feels in the jolts of a sequence with nervous palpitations. The movement increases with the arrival of percussions which subdivide their striking with anvil tones besides a synth which blows beautiful lyrical solos. Solos those become symphonic, dropping fine vocal threads, on a heavier and more musical structure. The Forest dips us back into a quieter universe. A serene atmosphere flooded of metallic streaks that fly over this atmospheric limpness before diving with biting reverberations towards Traveller and its nervous intro to agitated pulsations of echotic nervousness. A title in the same lineage as Dreamland, with good solos and rhythm permutations that charm and hook the hearing. Landscape is a short prelude to the title track which stretches the atmospheric side, before releasing its galloping sequences on soft and very musical synth half spectral, half bewitching breaths. A superb intro which gradually increases its tempo, with good percussions, borrowing an almost dramatic approach with its melancholic synthesized hooting. Medusa is a magnificent track. Hypnotic, the movement is minimalism and gallops with a harmonious musical elegance, under a juicy synthesized rain. A jewel of tenderness which withdraws under the ambient and atmospheric strings of Returning.
You doubtless understood it, Alien Nature and TMA’s Medusa d' is a small masterpiece of EM, Berlin School style. An album where cosmic tenderness is bound to a mix of heavy and light rhythms, with a poetic and harmonious concern that worth a lot of listening. This is hardly surprising when we know Wolfgang Barkowski’s musical works. Him who always produced excellent opuses, in solo or with Lambert Ringlage in Hypnosphere.

Sylvain Lupari (Phaedream) from Guts Of Darkness
The French Magazine of Dark & Experimental Music