Customer Reviews

Dalinetopia

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Though this release is not completly free of over used chord progressions, and the typical melodic phrasings that made for a tiresome journey to the land of Ninties Tangerine Dream-- been there done that-- I'm ejoying this one quite a bit. It's the clean shimmering mix firstly. The drum tracks are nice, and coupled with nice electronic pulses. The melodies after a second listen begin to really become clear for the patient listener. There is quite a a gorgeouse soundscape created in Dalozapata, and the lush Dalamuerte. The intricate rythmic complexity of Daleroshima, and better Dalasquadore, make one want to buy a five hundred dollar pair of headphones. Dalaglore is chill, and Daluna is fierce!

Also, Edgar Froese is playing guitar on this album!! No stand ins, Finally. To my disappointment though he has lost his love for great lead runs like those we heard in "Three Bikes in The Sky," or the ending passages of "London."

Oh well. Instead he meanders a bit with a reliance on harmonics and tones, but it's ok because this cd is so effective and damned pretty! It really is. To me it is like Mars Polaris, with a little more focus, and consistency.

Though I've been a huge fan of Tangerine Dream for years I've never been overly impressed by the solo work of Edgar Froese but this cd of surreal tracks and some good guitarwork really grew on me.Some tracks go on too long and a couple are a little bland but sevral are effective in evoking a spacey dreamscape.The final track of Dalinetopia which is Dalinetopia is an effectively eerie finish to this uneven but interesting work .

Edgar Froese had worked with surrealist art icon Salvador Dali. The album is a musical soundscape that salute the larger-than-life personality whose works are timeless.

The 10 tracks have varying, but very rich textures, which cover a wide-range of rhythms and have a special depth in sound. The guitar playing of Froese contains some of his best work ever in the studio. Froese paints an artistically impressive presentation, from album cover to music.

"Dalinetopia", if you hadn't already guessed, is Edgar Froese's tribute album to his one-time guide and mentor, Salvador Dalí, although not so much to the man himself, or even his art, but to the philosophy behind his art. The only remotely Dalí-like aspect to the production to my mind are the meaningless but highly evocative titles (and I am sure that 'Dalysisiphus' is actually meant to be 'Dalisisyphus') that are each suggestive of the prevalent mood of their respective track. The sleeve-notes for this 2004 solo release include a rather pretentious summary of just what that philosophy means for Edgar W. Froese, as artist and composer. Most Froese fans are well used to that sort of thing from their hero and won't need (or want) to understand it and know better than to let it detract from the music itself -- they'll merely judge this album on what they hear. Which is as it should be.

So, what does it sound like? To my ear, the most noticeable thing is just how much Edgar seems to have learnt from his son Jerome, for this is the first Froese solo album to feature any decent drum machine programming. It is also one of the most consistent in quality (and character) of all of his solo albums, suggesting that this time he actually sat down to compose a full album, rather than putting together for public consumption a varied collection of experimental doodlings. To my ears, this is about the most satisfying Froese solo album since "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale" (and I'm talking about the original 1975 release, not the dreadful rehashed version released a few years ago) with no track feeling as though it is out of place or going on so long as to out-stay its welcome. The album doesn't feel to be 70 minutes in length.

That said, there is nothing terribly exciting or stunningly brilliant about it, but it does have a pleasing array of guitar tunes (including some soaring riffs on 'Dalamuerte' and 'Dalagalor', for example, that are easily amongst Edgar's finest), a good mix of rhythms (from the gentle ballad of 'Dalozapata' to the pulsing drive of 'Daliesquador' and the almost techno-beat of 'Daluna') and some finely balanced but wide-ranging synthesised textures, which at times are almost orchestral in their grandeur. It also exhibits a degree of polish that is often lacking from this artist's solo releases, with tracks here exhibiting a degree of progression and development that Froese can usually never seem to manage when working on his own ('Daluminacion', for instance, progressing from a simple piano opening into a rich and complex-rhythmed little masterpiece, while the title track grows similarly into a synthesised vocal aria over a complex drum pattern that Edgar could never have managed in earlier times).

"Aqua" and "Epsilon..." this is most decidedly not but 30 years on, what would one expect? I for one am pleased that Edgar seems finally to have come of age as a solo artist, no longer having any need to inflict the detritus of his sonic experimentation/doodling (see "Ages") upon the Tangerine Dream fan-base. Instead he simply does here what he (and TD) have always done best, producing an album of good solid electro-sonic tone-paintings (try "Le Parc" for an equivalent TD album) that are both engaging and invigorating, and which really stands up to repeated listening. Perhaps it is no accident that it has taken Froese almost 40 years to feel he is only now able to produce this tribute to the man who set him up his own particular artistic path?