SPACECRAFT

The synth and electronic effects on this album are extremely bright and punchy in the mix, which makes for a slightly abrasive but very powerful kind of spacey feel when coupled with the echoing/hypnotizing psychedelic effects in the background. But, unlike most of the spacey electronic albums, this album sounds less like the atmosphere of space and more like the congested atmosphere from inside a spacecraft looking outwards toward the stars and planets. This sound is achieved from the electronics sounding very mechanical but within the context of a spacey atmosphere, whereas most prog electronic groups seem to do either one or the other.

The addition of the manipulated guitar gives this album a strong krautrock flavor as well, and I'm not sure if I'm correct but the guitar playing sounds to be mostly improvised. It's all done very well, but it does sound a bit German to me. Not that sounding German is bad, but I kind of hoped for something uniquely French, considering that the guitarist of this project was also a member of Clearlight (which sounds uniquely French, in my opinion). Of course, there is no France in outer space, or a Germany for that matter. The purpose of the electronic and krautrock genres were initially to create music that sounded like it was from the depths of space. With that in mind, this album definitely succeeds, and it is a very wonderful album of noisy, congested, mechanical space music.

Mr MEV - Frederic Rzewski uses an amplified glass plate to which he attaches stretched and coiled springs to produce some of the odd sounds present on this 42 minute album.

Alvin Curran (MEV) is also on board here, doing strange things like using contact mikes to amplify a large African thumb piano and bits of what can only be described as 'junk'. Third member Richard Teitelbaum plays Moog using - and yes I mean this - his toes, heartbeat and brainwaves. What the??!!

There's quite a lot of treated guitar on the second half of the album which is quite nice and there's some superb keyboard reverb weirdness, but needless to say, this won't appeal to many. Fans of 'Atem' to 'Rubycon' by Tangerine Dream and the more experimental listeners of prog may get a lot out of this. There's not much in the way of tunes that you'll be whistling afterwards though, but it's still a pretty good effort.

Dreamy...

Obscure french guitar/synthe duo: John Livengood (Red noise) on synthe and Ivan Coaquette on guitar (Clearlight, Delired cameleon family, Musica electronica viva). They released this unique record in 1978, actually a live album, featuring pieces from 1973, 1975 and the CD version features a 1977 bonus.

As the pieces tittles suggests, Spacecraft music is highly cosmic, astral and overall, acid. The first piece sends the listener in the third dimension without preamble. It evokes Gong, Clearlight, thanks to galactic synthe work. The music is not structured, it's purely experimental. The dark mood may also evoke Heldon. Ivan Coaquette guitar interventions are quite rare but qualitative: he has a unique cosmic sound which sounds like no other. The last piece (bonus) "Pays De Glace" is a fascinating experimental hypnotic repetitive tune which is so weird and cerebral that it may be anguishing.

The sound quality is average on this record, suffering from a muffled sound. One of the most acid, dark and atypical record from the whole progressive.