Customer Reviews

Royal Astronomy

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm a fan of µ-ziq's first two albums ("Tango n'Vectif", "Bluff Limbo"), and I'm completely alienated from his new recordings. They miss the power, threat and distortion of his innovative early output. This album almost sounds like mainstream-pop and is boring all the way. Stay away from this trash and check out Mike's fascinating early tracks.

U-ziq possesses me from time to time, forcing me to return to certain albums and marvel at the way they fell from the musical forge. Its never really a particular purpose that brings me back to each electronic byproduct, nor is there really ever something to call "method" within that madness. Sometimes it's simply bits and pieces of the proposal itself that make me want the whole. When it comes to Royal Astronomy in particular, it's sometimes the layering that makes me think that a certain song is amazing, and other times its simply the choices that were utilized when furthering that audio dynamo. Whether it's the pinging that draws me in or the use of instrumentation that sounds like classical music played through someone's dreams on acid, its always a good fix.

Royal Astronomy has a little of everything within it, and I found the album amazingly done when it comes down to the dynamic it possesses. There are different types of music mixed into the mold, building better tempos and meters by merging blends of "something old" and "something new" until it makes something beautiful. That causes the mediums to be different as well, and the hints of shading and the musical textures used to shift moods depending on what type of moody lighting is used is delightful.

What first introduced me to the album was the video for "The Fear," a lovely sounding track that's like beauty beginning in the middle of a forming sea of storms, and its always stayed with me as my favorite track on the album. It begins with a beautiful number, a female voice reaching out from within it, and then it becomes a swell of motion and noise that reaches out to take over. I've always liked that approach to music, too, the calm in the midst of a sea of sounds, with it grasping onto me and tugging me into the beauty of the thing defined within. I also like the approach taken here and the instrumentation used, with quite a few classical sounds mixing into the electronic fold and blending seamlessly into the sometimes-bizarre surroundings. Because of that, I liked the strangely epic yet oddly tempoed "Scaling," the way "Slice" builds itself up while dipping into an electronic swirl of textures, and the way "Gruber's Mandolin" shouts its presence.

Besides those pieces, there are the more electronic sounds incorporated into the mix; with "The Hwicci Song" taking advantage of a little song of static and a beat mingling as one, "Carpet Muncher" building around some of the noise fibers I've become accustomed to from U-ziq as they ride the electronica rollercoaster ride, and "World of Leather" also playing a little building game within that sound-oriented vortex. Then there are the almost hip-hop sounds found here as well, the haunting ballads mixing and mingling in songs like "Goodbye, Goodbye," and a few other fashions forming the work as a whole.

While this album has been met with a few stiff lips, its actually something I can return to time and again because it has so many components within it. The mixes of melody and madness, the tempos within the tempests; these are done in ways that are rewarding to hear.

This album is excellent, except that it is spoilt by let's say two tracks. The good stuff is a mingling of orchestration and melody with techno (my all-time favorite is Goodbye, Goodbye), while the bad tracks (like The Motorbike Track) seem to be derived from some new commercial drum'n'bass or techno album, ideal for 12 year olds. What a pity!

hmmm... There seems to be something missing with this album. It doesn't seem as free as Lunatic Harness. The tracks seem very "artificial" if you get my drift, It seems Mike just didn't put enough time, effort and imagination into this album and just wanted to churn out a quick seller for the record companys.

Don't come to this record looking for the trademark logic-confounding drum-n-bass tweakings of his other work. This one has a more TV-commercial-friendly aspect to most of it, lots of apparent melodies and string-only washes, less of the vaoprizing remixing workouts of, say, his excellent "Lunatic Harness" record. It drones a bit for the first few tracks (which is still decent droning, but droning nonetheless, and not quite what you go to Mu-ziq for). He gives us some of the daring nosebleed-inducing chops he's built a reputation on with tracks like "The Motorbike Track" and "Burst Your Arm", but all in all it's all over the place with the mood, which makes it easy to respect, but hard to enjoy and even harder to recommend.

Royal Astronomy is it.

1. scaling - All strings, tubular bells, undulating rythym, and timpani. Sounds like archestra but makes you want to dance.

2. the hwicci song - Sounds like it could be right off of ICPs "The Great Milenko". Weird and very very kool.

3. autumn acid - This seals the deal. Mike P is Rich D's heir. Could've been off of "I care because you do" but is entirely fresh. Unreal!

4. slice - baroque chamber music meets the DSP. Beautifully emotional. Then the drums kick in and you do the victory dance of joy.

5. carpet muncher - good drum and bass, but really could've been by almost anyone. Has a great jazzy/noir hook. I like it.

6. the motorbike track - seems to be universally reviled as it's pretty standard DnB but I like that warbling bassline.

7. mentim - Classic Mike P. Spacious soundscape of distortion. Not for everyone.

8. the fear - UNBELIEVABLE tune. It continues scaling and slice, but then it adds the etherreal lyrics and poof... your in another place altogether.

9. gruber's mandolin - similar to slice but darker. Very interesting layers of music.

10. world of leather - funniest song I've heard in a long time. Pure electro-cheese combined with nice jazzy bits... very original. very good.

11. scrape - more e-style classical strings. An uplifting musical partner to Aphex Twin's "goon gumpas" off of "Richard D. James Album".

12. 56 - another Mike P. original sound. Rock the House... lightly.

13. burst your arm - Vast soundscape of warbly bits'n'bytes combined with DnB. A bit too commercial for my tastes though.

14. goodbye, goodbye - thick musical stew. Rich creamy sounds. Gorgeous wordless lyrics. Excellent tune.

I love this album. It had me grooving from the opening strings of scaling to the sputtering dissipation of goodbye, goodbye. I can't say enough about it.

Out on the meadow the field goats like to climb up onto that bent old tree. In cyberspace the old critics like to climb up onto this bent CD. Problem being that we are measuring this CD up to Mu-ziq standards. No it does not have those lightning edged tetanic seizures. And the melodies don't have the haunting Paradinas groove. Yet throw "Royal Astronomy" into the electronica barnyard and it holds up as a good album. It is a thoughtful imaginative project. "Autumn Acid & Burst your arm" are tight and strong. But if your hungry for that vitalized futuristic semi-destructive Mu-ziq engine don't look here.

RA is a very nice CD considering it's simplicity (which I normally don't care for). The direction Mike took with this CD was entertaining in the fact that he made some DnB (sorta) styled tunes, but still kinda kept his style with em. As far as tunes go, "Scaling", "Autumn Acid", "Slice", "the motorbike track" (many will disagree with me there), "Scrape", and "56" (possibly my favorite, not sure) are the top tunes on this LP. Many listeners will find Mike's normal "playful" style of music here, but it's a tad more difficult to find than on "Lunatic Harness". Nice one.

I burnt this disc awhile back and managed to lose it, but I enjoyed it so much that I recently purchased a copy. That's the quality of Mike Paradinas work! Royal Astronomy starts off strong with an interesting piece entitled Scaling and continues to excel on to track three Autumn Acid (reminiscent of an AFX track). He stumbles a bit on some tracks like The Motorbike Track but drum n' bass isn't really my cup of tea and some of the sparse pieces bored me a bit. Besides that, I would recommend this to open-minded fans of electronic music. The standout tracks as far as I'm concerned are Slice, World of Leather, Goodbye Goodbye and my favorite 56. Looking forward to his next release!

Although this album is not as good as Lunatic Harness, it still deserves the full five stars (merely because Lunatic Harness was around a 25 on a 5 star scale). On this album Mike Paradinas has left behind the classic synth sounds and sine wave modulators in favour of live strings and more listener friendly effects.

This still stays in the same style as Paradinas' older works, only this time around, the orchestrations actually sound like live concert hall orchestrations instead of synthesizers playing complex orchestrations. On top of this, Paradinas keeps with his usual flair for telling emotional aural stories. Until Lunatic Harness gets scored and performed by the London Philharmonic, this is the closest we can get...an emotionally stirring symphonic album with record scratching.