The acoustic elements added to all the synth wizardry enhance an already pastoral, countryside atmosphere, the vibrant, coral-reef colours and proliferous, spined synths largely replaced by muted, faded, cigarette burnt pastels and majestically rolling soundscapes.
[Release page] Listen to some samples from Soft Terminal and deny that it all sounds oddly familiar? You’re not wrong, and not just because the analog synth wizard behind it is as prolific as ever, but also because he’s been trying to cover the tracks of his own heightened productivity with invented pseudonyms, diverting badinage and fictional provenance. It is probably no secret at this point that Panabrite—Norm Chambers—Jürgen Müeller, the fictional oceanographer behind the three times repressed and now newly available on CD genre classic Science of the Sea.
Panabrite’s own Sub-Aquatic Meditation on Aguirre and the self-released Seychelles appear with similarly coral reef adorned artwork and an almost identical sonic aesthetic. Chambers has also reissued last year’s SicSic cassette, Illumination on Under The Spire, released a split cassette-only EP on Maba Tapes, a collaboration with Christian Richer under the moniker Soft Mirage entitled Ionian Dream as well as his latest LP, The Baroque Atrium as part of the Australian Preservation imprint’s Circa 2012 series. All of this in 2012 alone.
So, given the choices available and you had to pick one, why make it Soft Terminal over the others? Well for one thing this album heads in a slightly different sonic direction as suggested by the sleeve artwork: towards a festival tent populated by pot-smoking, long-haired, flares-wearing new age and prog-rock fans. The acoustic elements added to all the synth wizardry enhance an already pastoral, countryside atmosphere, the vibrant, coral-reef colours and proliferous, spined synths largely replaced by muted, faded, cigarette burnt pastels and majestically rolling soundscapes.
There are enough moments of sheer brilliance to make this an exemplary synth release, such as the ever deepening sonic bliss of “Index of Gestures” as layer upon layer of shimmering synth-textures are added, culminating in a warm bass pad before dissolving into glass bubble, twitter squeak and toy arpeggios or the twinkling gemstone washes and luxurious rippling keys of “Glass Palace.” The album’s most prickly and melodically memorable moment is easily the bleepy “Beta Axis Terminal,” a frantic, fast-paced sparkler of a piece. Then there’s Soft Terminal‘s crowning achievement, “Camembert Symphony” with its tongue-in-cheek Casio keyboard rhythms, wobbly, fuzzy-felt synth pads, sparkling fx and sultry, Gallic allure.
As a cohesive whole, however, Soft Terminal arguably lacks that certain something that made Science of the Sea such a blinding success. “Janus” and “Sound Softly” both lapse into the aforementioned, conventional hippy guitar strumming sequences which, while not unusual on earlier Panabrite albums in particular, are not hugely emotionally or atmospherically appealing. The former in particular unforgivably breaks the spell cast by the almost otherworldly first three tracks with its directionless noodling, the guitar’s appearance overall simply too infrequent to sound like an integral ingredient in the overall flavour of the album.
Chambers’ plethora of recent Panabrite releases may not have garnered the same press attention or critical acclaim as that of his fictional alias, but Soft Terminal features some more great works of a quality and individuality that is quite surprising from an artist so prolific. It is also easily on the best. Highly recommended.
Soft Terminal is available on Digitalis. [Release page]
