RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL - EMISSARIES
Seeds Crossing the Interstellar Void
[16:22]24.9 Mb
A Priest Crossing Frozen Water
[13:22]20.3 Mb
Mad Bobs Self Inflected Torment
[9:58]15.3 Mb
The Emissaries Reveal Themselves
[9:08]13.9 Mb
The Ice Garden
[7:36]11.4 Mb
A Promise of Salvation
[3:26]5.2 Mb
An Interstellar Vacuum is Far from Empty
[12:13]17.6 Mb
Mobile Star Systems
[13:01]20.3 Mb
A Piano Wanders the Incandescent Vapours
[11:11]16.4 Mb
Sympathy for the Bedeviled
[9:35]15 Mb
The Arrival of the Seeds
[16:16]24.6 Mb
Deliverance from Nuclear Winter
[14:12]22.3 Mb
Radio Massacre International "Emissaries" Album Review
My great new electronic discovery!
I just recently discovered RMI, well better late than never. Well, I saw a description of RMI on their 2005 American release, Emissaries, and it sounded interesting, and I bought it and I wasn't disappointed.
This album got released on Cuneiform, a label that existed since the 1980s that specializes in progressive rock, experimental, avant garde, RIO, etc. And what a great way for me to get started with RMI than Emissaries, after all, being released on Cuneiform, it obviously would be more readily available than their other releases.
RMI is a British electronic trio consisting of Steve Dindale, Duncan Goddard, and Gary Houghton. Are you, like me, believe that Tangerine Dream hadn't released much anything worthwhile in the last 20 years? Are you sick and tired of hearing of another electronic act coming down the pike claiming they're the best thing since mid 1970s Tangerine Dream, only to end up as another generic New Age act? Well, RMI has came to the rescue. If Emissaries is anything to go by, I will be looking forward to getting their other releases (if they show up, that is, which I'll explain). They have a huge back-catalog, but only available on a small British label, and for every commercially available CD, they issued something like 5 CD-Rs which you can only get from the band. If it keeps going like this, and you include the CD-Rs with the CDs, they'll be quickly overshadowing Tangerine Dream in amount of recorded output within another decade.
Well, I really like this retro-electronic approach. They go for a truly wonderful analog approach, with analog keyboards, like different Moogs (Memorymoog, Source), EMS AKS (although this CD don't mention anyone using one, although the photo shows Duncan Goddard with an EMS synth, you only saw the top part, but I discovered it was an AKS, which is esentially a Synthi A with a membrane keyboard included), Yamaha CS50 and CS30, Roland SH-3, and most of all, the Mellotron, and believe me, this is the real deal, not some digital facsimile! Another keyboard not mentioned, although I do hear it, is the Elka Rhapsody.
Although comparisons are made to Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, Richard Pinhas, Redshift, and even Hawkwind (?), the overall feel I get is that of mid '70s Tangerine Dream. I don't understand the Hawkwind comparison, however, I can understand comparisons to those other acts. These guys tend to use sequencers, and when the sequencers work overtime, they would given them a rest for some really nice, ambient passages. Emissaries is essentially two lengthy pieces ("The Emissaries Suite" and "Ancillary Blooms") divided into six separate parts each. First CD is a studio recording made in England, recorded late 2004, the first, recorded earlier in 2004, is recorded here in America, from a Philadelphia radio broadcast (courtesy of WXPN) called Star's End, originally two hours long, this is the 76 minute excerpt. Don't expect any audience cheering on this live half, but the band sure proves they can hold their own live.
This is an enhanced CD, which you can access a comic done by Matt Howarth through the Acrobat Reader on your computer, and believe me, this ain't the comics you grew up as a kid (Spider Man this is not). It has a post-apocalytic theme involving a nuclear winter, alien flowers coming to Earth, and a priest and a madman. He did this comic to fit the theme to this album. Many of the song titles relate to the comic, like "Seeds Crossing the Interstellar Void", "A Priest Crossing Foreign Water", "The Ice Garden", "The Arrival of the Seeds", etc.
It's great to see new electronic music every bit as good as the best stuff from the 1970s. There is no New Age fluff to be found anywhere, and nothing that reveals this was recorded in 2004! Great stuff I highly recommend!
SUSI HYLDGAARD - BLUSH
Blush
[4:25]5.3 Mb
Take Your Time
[3:38]4.7 Mb
Seeking
[4:31]5.6 Mb
Suck the Bone
[4:25]5.6 Mb
Follow
[3:36]4.3 Mb
Sometimes
[4:07]5.9 Mb
Thai Food Chillilimit
[4:37]6.1 Mb
This Little Island
[4:02]5.2 Mb
Could this Be the Reason
[4:38]5.9 Mb
Sisters in Shame
[3:00]4.4 Mb
Seeking remix
[4:15]5.1 Mb
Blush remix
[5:57]9.1 Mb
Susi Hyldgaard "Blush" Album Review
Album Description
Singer and songwriter Susi Hyldgaard has, with the help of Dickon Hinchcliff (Tindersticks) and Steve Argüelles, created a very personal and touching album. Recorded in London, Paris and Copenhagen, Blush is Hyldgaard's fourth recording and the first to be released in North America. While her previous recordings were well received both in and outside her native Denmark, Blush is undeniably her finest and most personal effort to date, and signals the arrival of an innovative new voice in music. The release also offers two bonus tracks, remixes created by DJ Opiate (Björk) and Matthew Herbert.
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