A powerfully rich and remarkably dynamic release that guides the listener in an enthralling electronic cosmic dance. Essential listening to all exigent listeners, lovers of good old analog space music and advanced ambient electronica.
Node is a supergroup originally formed by Dave Bessell (known for his retro-ish Berlin school psych-trancey album Analogue and his noticeable collaboration with Parallel Worlds), the multi-instrumentalist and sound art creator Ed Buller and Flood. The team published a first opus in 1995 on Deviant Records. After a long time break Node’s inspirational strength is intact in this grandiose spacey synthscaping epic odyssey simply titled Node 2 with the presence of a new member Mel Wesson (soundtrack composer and multi-faceted sound designer). The U.K space music wizard Ian Boddy offered the collective to produce their materials at his DiN laboratory. This new Node opus and most of DiN efforts are the result of a deep comradeship inside a cohesive artistic international community which reunites various musical personalities around the targeted objective to fructify the legacy of Space ambient music and its derivates (Kosmische music, deep listening, organic ambient, downtempo etc).
This second Node chapter guarantees a fantastic intersidereal musical ride with a few visionary elements but mostly with a profound respect to some standards, formal compositional schemas and particular sound geologies which made Kosmische space music its true moment of fame. Hallucinated dreamscapes meet luminous-tumultuous electronic sequencing, throwing the listener in a vertiginous entrance to the infinite mysteries of the universe, an exploration at the center of the cosmic self. The complex synthesized structures offer a fascinating study on really moving rhythmical waves which give to the pieces an almost magical incantatory impact.
The album starts with an absolutely haunting and mesmerizing ghostly piano overture, an enchanting and beautifully orchestrated synthscape rises from the background, a quite tense and mysterious unearthly atmosphere which won’t leave the listener along the album. Some typically easy listening / crystal-like “discreet music” lines communicate with sci-fi fractal electronic effects and uninterrupted rhythmical looped electronic pulses. The sonic nightmarish-menacing soundtracky feel almost reminds early Tangerine Dream in an album such as Sorcerer (particularly noticeable in “Marche Mécanique” and the spookily vibrant “Dark Beneath The Earth”), Edgar Froese in Ages (1978) or Klaus Schulze in Angst (1983).
To sum up things, Node 2 is a powerfully rich and remarkably dynamic release that guides the listener in an enthralling electronic cosmic dance. Essential listening to all exigent listeners, lovers of good old analog space music and advanced ambient electronica.
Node 2 is available on DiN.
