Petites Constellations develops shifting and subtle soundscapes with a retro-ish feeling, emerging from analog keyboards and vintage electronic equipment. However, it also stands as a thoroughly modern album, filled with kinetic grooves and bold compositional ingredients.
Filled with kinetic grooves and bold compositional ingredients
Working now with the iconic Ian Boddy and his historic DiN laboratory, Bluetech gains the opportunity to bring his meticulously crafted downtempo pieces and chilled-out, spacey sound odysseys to another level of recognition. I discovered this intriguing sound artist on several occasions, notably through compilations and on SomaFM, where his musical signature stood out immediately. His music balances easy-listening synthedelia with groovy electronic pop, indietronica, and, at times, immersive contemplation in the vein of Evan Marc Bartholomew’s cosmical What Light Remains.
Bartholomew’s eclecticism in sound research and his ability to reconcile shaking, sometimes almost dance-oriented electro rhythms with rotating meditative synthscapes allow him to occupy a singular place in the universe of modern electronic music. Petites Constellations develops shifting and subtle soundscapes with a retro-ish feeling, emerging from analog keyboards and vintage electronic equipment. However, it also stands as a thoroughly modern album, filled with kinetic grooves and bold compositional ingredients.
Punctuated by semi-improvised melodic lines ::
The album is versatile, melodic, and virtuosic, presenting expansive keyboard soloing performed with remarkable skill and control. It remains lively, pulsating, and constantly moving, with lush hypno-ish tones built upon a dancing ballet of pads. If you enjoy cosmic synth progressions and synergetic sequences, you will feel completely at home here. Electronic scintillations and elegant arpeggiators, punctuated by semi-improvised melodic lines, gently resonate throughout the album.
All in all, this is a heavily sequenced, playful, light, and textural ambient work that is also melodically evocative. It embraces the stylistic path of the Berlin School while incorporating additional sonic explorations and contemporary rhythmic sensibilities. The production continuously shifts between contemplative drift and propulsive momentum, giving the album both emotional warmth and dynamic energy.
Recommended for fans of analog synth wizardry from Tim Blake, Steve Hillage, Malcolm Cecil, Ashra’s New Age of Earth, Steve Brenner, and Mort Garson, as well as listeners drawn to textured, synergetic ambient journeys from Space Time Continuum, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Legowelt, and Atlas Sound. Petites Constellations is an abstract and moving, yet also demonstrative, catchy, and dynamic electronic album that processes its influences into a compelling hybrid of styles, with incursions into retro progressive music.
Petite Constellations is available on DiN / Behind The Sky Music.
