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Saving the thought and history of the past yet with a reluctance to give up on the future Node produces music with incomparable penetration. The insistent force and haunting exploration of Node 2 (73'31") simply dazzles with its sonic power. Their second full-length release Node 2 is an album so ingenious, beautiful and complex the listener will marvel at the ceaseless musical invention of members Dave Bessell, Ed Buller, Mark Ellis (Flood) and Mel Wesson. The nine tracks deal with movement and instantaneity and may test the attention of the pedestrian listener amid such wandering forms - but for its power this music takes possession of us, much more than we may possess it. Node's arsenal of vintage gear, objects now of cult and mystic contemplation, offers vivid synthesized sonorities - the appeal lying not in Node's minimalist simplicity but in their ability to create intimate and cinematic listening experiences. Far from barren soundscapes their compositions should cause significant disturbances within the beaming Spacemusic enthusiast. Commanding sequencer patterns surge alongside sweeping chords and filtered electric guitar melodies - the mechanical rigidity somehow softened as it pumps up against tuneful leads. Disarmingly quiet passages reduce the level of density and energy with insinuating modulations and vaporous aural forces. The album pushes and pulls itself, expands and contracts, creating an interesting contour through various scenarios and scenes - to attain a rare unity. Node offers the audience an experience beyond information about the moment in which we live. Their work is more a metaphor for consciousness than it is a comment on our most immediate reality. This frontier will never be closed, so long as groups such as Node are out there exploring.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 28 February 2014 |
