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Our brain is a predictive organ, constantly guessing what will be coming next. And so throughout Galaxis, the triple CD set from Gert Emmens & Ruud Heij, our minds should feel thoroughly exercised. With Galaxis this long-lived duo offers 14 tracks that demonstrate their range as composers, arrangers and musicians. Overtly a Spacemusic collaboration, this epic release also benefits from ample electro beat box and conventional acoustic drum kit - a rhythm feature that permits this music to access the ideals of the musical mainstream (while never forsaking its cosmic roots). As the energy level builds, Emmens & Heij head out on a reckless ride into the unknown. Sequencer patterns run in machine like precision as full-throated lead lines and penetrating synth harmonies fill out the sonic story. Their spacier tracks offer a magnificent directness. As oscillators detune and phase, modulated effects chirp, flitter and glitter, then recede into the distance. With long lines of held notes we search for a path along an undulating arc of reverie. Lulled by an otherworldly calmness, the listener drifts on these vibrating currents - drawn easily above the shifting timbral expanse. Throughout this growing density a slowly building ethereal energy may be felt. Churning, shimmering sounds flow together into a sweeping resonance, then are displaced by a new and equally novel airy form. Cosmically complex yet microscopically intricate these zones meant to spark our imagination exposes the purity and calm of two electronic souls. While Galaxis may be promoted as having something for everyone, how much better to consider this diverse offering as an invitation to embrace and appreciate the many moods and ideas of which this unique genre is capable. Beautiful and strange, quietly profound, then rocking and charged, every piece evokes an inner experience through the artful shaping of sound. In its forward thinking, this kind of music has always been about making the future, an activity that at one time took place outside of science fiction. But, as some truths are better told in sound, the purpose of this music now might lie in its ability to help us just survive the present.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 26 July 2018 |
